Saturday, April 5, 2008

There will be blood

This is what Pippi's early morning routine has started to look like (prior to her "walkies"):

1) Rattles her crate to wake us up, usually around 6:30 am; gets ignored for awhile and only let out when she's quiet (so as not to teach her to give *us* commands).
2) Gets let out in back yard to do her business
3) Gobbles her breakfast
4) "Kills" one of her toys by violently shaking, whipping, and tossing it around the room.

I've never known a creature to wake up with such blood lust. Should I be worried? Or should I be thankful that if she does manage to catch a squirrel or chipmunk in our backyard, that she'll finish it off handily, instead of leaving us to put it out of its misery?

And speaking of our own little wild kingdom, on our walkies this morning I saw one of the campus falcons kill and carry off a robin. It was both disturbing -- the robin tried to get away and nearly did -- and also kind of cool. Pippi wasn't the least bit interested. Some bird dog. She'd rather get all the squirrels.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Voiceover's routine is surprisingly similar. After breakfast, he kills (with teeth and hind paws) the previous day's newspaper, which Special K leaves on the floor next to his chair. Once he's got the morning bloodlust out of his system, he sleeps for the rest of the day.

Belle said...

Does Pippi like balls? You might try running her after her morning 'duties' to sideline the bloodlust (assuming you do).

She is gorgeous. Lucky you!

Thoroughly Educated said...

Yup, my most prey-focused dog (YD) kills a few toys right after breakfast, too. That's also when she's most ready for a huge romp, if anybody will romp with her. TCO hasn't started shaking-and-killing toys yet, but I'm sure it'll come soon.

the rebel lettriste said...

C. too will destroy all toys. His favorite game is "rope," where he shakes his filthy rope and growls and chases it. But he knows it's a toy.

It's his intense desire to chase things--balls, sticks, other animals--that's a bit alarming. He took off after a doe once with such ferocity I was certain that a.) that was what he was born to do, and b.) that doe was going to brain him. When I found him, after 10 minutes of frantic namecalling, he was rolling in a carcass he'd found. He looked up at me with such an idiotically happy expression. It was like: "Hey! Where were you? I found this deer, and then this dead stuff, and boy the country is great!!"

Dame Eleanor Hull said...

Try living with cats! They evolved to wake up and kill something, no down time at all.