Ok, so last night I was walking my dog off-lead near where I live. It was dark as I'm trying to avoid people, and the green areas near me a quite popular now because of lockdown.
When I arrived home, and put the lights on my dog had red fresh blood around her muzzle. I am going to assume it was blood because that's what it looked like, and there isn't any other rational explanation that I can think of.
I checked she wasn't hurt/bleeding (which she wasn't) and washed it off.
I'm a bit in shock to be honest, I walk her off lead in a very large rural area (no livestock or domestic animals) and she does disappear into the undergrowth and runs around chasing the millions of rabbits and squirrels.
On a couple of occasions she has caught a young rabbit, mostly by coming across them, as she's not quick enough to catch one normally, she will happily hand over the catch, she loses interest once the animal is not running.
But did she catch and kill a rabbit last night?
(I'm going to assume a rabbit as my dog is a bit of a wimp and is very scared of my cat etc)
Is it possible to kill and start eating a rabbit etc and not get any other blood on herself other than her muzzle (my dog is bright white and quite fluffy) - I would have thought her paws/front legs might have got splashed of blood on them?
I know it's entirely possible, but how probable is it? She's a mixed breed dog, small size, and as I said really interested in chasing small animals, but I've never seen her kill anything before. She wasn't out of my sight for long (she wears a flashing collar in the dark).
I kept her on a lead on tonight's walk. Should I muzzle her on off-lead walks from now on? Will she have the taste for blood?
She's been acting as normal today, but I'm really freaked out by it!
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The doghouse
Did my dog kill something?
25 replies
permana · 05/04/2020 22:33
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