The red fox

Saturday morning started out with a boom. Seriously. A big boom! The neighbor down over the hill fired a shot at daybreak! Dad said it sounded like a black powder muzzleloader. The deer hunters have a black powder season so lots of the neighbors have those guns. 

Mom and I woke up to the big boom. Mom muttered something about idiots but since she wasn't talking about me or Dad, I went back to sleep for a bit. When we finally got up, Mom took me straight-away to the door like she always does. I knew as soon as I stepped outside something was wrong. I smelled it and pushed Mom back inside. She didn't know what was going on and fussed me for almost knocking her down. 

I growled and growled so she started looking out the windows and that's when she saw it lying in the yard beside the patio - an injured red fox. Mom opened the bathroom window and the fox tried to get up and run but it couldn't. Its hind legs were paralyzed but it was still strong enough to drag itself a few feet and hide under the hostas. 

Right away she told me it had been shot. Mom went into the bedroom and told Dad he had to get up and put the fox out of its misery. I had to think about that for a minute and I'm pretty sure she meant the fox was in a lot of pain and it made her sad. It made Dad sad, too. He got up and didn't even put on his pants before he loaded the rifle. He said we couldn't let the fox suffer any longer than necessary. 

Dad's a really good shot. 

Mom and Dad used the backhoe on the John Deere to bury the fox. Even though they don't like having foxes around, they were still sad they had to put it down. They're kind of angry with the neighbors, too. They say if you load your gun to hunt, you'd better know how to make a clean, quick kill. They say it's wrong to let any animal suffer. 

I agree.

Deer in my yard

Mom and Dad are talking about something called hunting season. They say we have to be careful when we're outside at dawn and dusk because some of the hunters are also "fucking idiots." I'm not sure what one of those is, but I can tell from the way Dad says it, it's not a good thing to be. 

The hunters are after the deer. Hey! So am I! I love to chase the deer out of my yard! They see me and they run away. Mom says I can chase them as far as the stone fence, the top of the hill, or to just beyond the shed. So far I've remembered and stopped because it's pretty obvious deer are really fast when a wolf is after them. And boy can they jump! 

All last summer we saw a single doe and her two fawns. Mom and Dad asked me not to chase the little ones so I didn't. It was really hard for me to sit and watch them come out of the woods and walk through the yard, but I did it. I'm Deuce! I'm a good dog!

Now there is a big herd coming into the yard to eat acorns. Mom's been trying to get a picture of all of them at once but so far she hasn't gotten the shot she wants. She'll keep trying. Mom's persistent. 

Mom says come spring we can take a walk through the woods, off the paths, and look for shed antlers. That sounds like a lot of fun! Maybe one of the bucks will drop an antler in my yard and I can give it to Mom. I bet she'd really like that. 

Or maybe not. Maybe if I find one in my yard, I'll get to keep it. After all, it's a known fact that all things found by the Lab, belong to the Lab.