Saturday, March 31, 2012

Samson 2, Squirrels 0

It happened again.  Samson captured and killed a squirrel.  It has been almost 4 years since he last caught a squirrel.  He has bagged a few rabbits and field mice since then, but squirrels have been beating him at his game for a while.  Until today.





It seemed an innocent enough act.  Samson was at the slider in our Back Room and he was squeaking.  Samson makes a high pitch squeak when he wants to go out, and his squeakiness is attenuated when there are squirrels in his yard.  I saw two squirrels running around near a large tree in our yard.  I thought that Samson would have no chance whatsoever to catch either of these squirrels.


I was wrong.


I did not see him bag his quarry.  It was Deirdre who looked out into our yard and said to me, "Oh my!  He got the squirrel!  He got the squirrel!."






I went outside and Samson was proudly standing over his prey.  The squirrel from my vantage point did not have any obvious wounds, but it was clearly not moving.  I called Samson away and he did walk away, but he kept looking back at the squirrel, as if it was going to get up and play again.


We got Samson in the house and Deirdre said to me, "You know, I am not taking care of the squirrel."  I acknowledged her comment.  I went into the garage to get a shovel and gloves in case I needed to humanely end the life of the squirrel.


I walked up to the squirrel and he was clearly dead.  I rolled the animal over and there were abrasions in his fur, most likely put there by Samson's canine teeth.  The squirrel also seemed quite limp, so I am suspecting that once Samson had the squirrel in his mouth he shook it a couple of times and broke its back.


I disposed of the squirrel's lifeless body, returned my tools and gloves to the garage and I came into the house.  I praised Samson for his efforts.  His tail was wagging wildly as I patted his head and gave him a puppy treat.





Be forewarned if you are a squirrel or other varmint and you dare cross into Samson's yard. You do so at your mortal peril.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good job yard protecting Samson!

Anonymous said...

I don't want to take anything away from Wonderdog's accomplishment, but my cat does it on a semi-regular basis. Don't tell Samson that.
AV

Paul's Blog said...

Samson is pretty noisy when he hunts. Lots of squeaking and barking. I am guessing that your cat is a lot quieter!

Deirdre Honner said...

We are getting to use to the yard violence. We try not to let the neighbors know.

Ur-spo said...

After all, it is in his job description.