Writing the Ride: Candace Carrabus Rice, Author

I love my dogs, I really really do. Almost as much as I love my cats, and I really really REALLY love my cats. But this is about dogs. Being doggy. Sometimes, they are SO doggy. Like when Carlo, our black Lab puppy, goes out and eats everything he can find that smells and looks nasty. Like cat poop and dead frogs.

So, yesterday, just as Rianna’s bus was pulling in and I was taking Carlo out for his latest foraging adventure, this huge commotion erupted under our front deck. Dogs on the attack. Growling, yelping, snapping, and that deep-throated snarl that is impossible to misunderstand–the one that means something is about to be killed.

I knew Emily, our chocolate Lab/Pit Bull mix, was under there as well as Lucy, who is a long-haired Doxie/Tasmanian Devil mix. Really, we don’t know what Lucy is, but she’s quick and agile and has a certain edge about her that I like. Emily, of course, is big and powerful, and has no use for wild animals invading her territory. And rarely are any stupid enough to do so.

My first thought was that Lucy’s edge had somehow set Emily off. That they’d been playing and gotten carried away as dogs sometimes do, with fatal results. I ran to the deck and stomped on it yelling, “Emily, Lucy, NO!” to no avail. This deck is close to the ground and there’s no way I could see what was going on where they were. I yelled to Rianna to grab Carlo and the phone while I ran for a shovel, all the while fearing the worst.

I started digging, but the ground is hard and full of rocks, and there was no way I could get to them fast enough. Rianna was crying, I was crying and sweating and calling to the dogs. There was no sound of Lucy. Rianna fumbled the phone a couple of times, but reached our neighbor who came tearing down the road to help in any way she could. I’d forgotten she was watching her two young granddaughters, but they came along, no strangers to dogs and the trouble they can get into, especially in a rural area, like ours.

Rianna ran to watch the kids while my neighbor ran for the hose to try and break up the fight, but I had reached under the deck and put my hand on something dead, still warm, but limp and gone. It was too late. The ruckus had subsided to Emily’s heavy breathing, but still, I could see nothing. I kept digging and calling anyway.

I saw a tail. Too dark and bristly to be Lucy, but I wasn’t sure. I sent Rianna to the back yard to call for Lucy in case she was hiding from all this under one of the other decks. It never occurred to me they might have cornered a cat, but it wasn’t a cat’s tail either, and finally, I got hold of a foot, and it was definitely not a dog or cat foot. But Emily dragged the body back before I could see more, scraping her hard tooth over my finger as she did, cutting it open.

Finally, Lucy stuck her face where I could see it, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t about to play tug of war with Emily over whatever it was, but she eventually released it, and a fat muskrat slipped into my hands. The dogs crawled from underneath the way they’d gone in, excitedly out of breath, tails wagging, tongues hanging long. They wanted their catch, but I took it to a far field where the coyotes would deal with it later.

I felt bad for the muskrat, but its death was probably quick. I’ve seen Emily deal with possums, and she doesn’t waste time. If the creature was stupid or arrogant enough to think it could get away with living under our dog’s nose, then it needed to be removed from the gene pool.

I love my dogs, I really really do. Sometimes, I could wish for them to be a little less doggy, but I understand their essential nature, especially when they live in a place that presents them with such opportunities.

It was a long, long 20 minutes or however long the episode actually lasted. When it was over, I smelled like I’ve never smelled before. Between my own adrenaline and sweat, and that of the dogs, not to mention the muskrat, well, ’nuff said. I took a long bath.

But before I went inside, I found a few of our cats sleeping on the table and chairs of the back deck, completely unconcerned with this drama that did not involve them, dreaming, perhaps, of their own catches–birds and mice and the occasional snake.

Do you have dogs? What doggy things have they done? I’d love to hear your stories.