Help. My dog just ate a baby rabbit.

[littlewhitebag]

My 13 mth old golden lab managed to catch a baby rabbit when we were out earlier. I think it died instantly and the dog was carrying it in her mouth. I tried to get her to 'leave it' and i offered treats but she would not give it up. She then proceeded to swallow it in a few gulps. She didn't maul it as there was no blood.

My questions are:

Is this likely to cause her any harm? Should i call the vet?

Is this in any way normal behaviour or is this a massive problem with my dog?

I am beyond traumatised by this and can hardly look at the dog now. I would be grateful for any advice about this.

Oh grim. I've just remembered about the time our 6 month old sprollie swallowed a live mouse, whole, in view of the kitchen table at dinner time. Had to put my dinner in the bin .

One of our cats brought in 2 baby rabbits last week. One first and then that was so delicious he went out and got another one. All that he left was the skin with the feet in a little separate pile. Yuck. He had eaten the most of both of them. He slept for about 2 days and didn't eat but he was fine. He is wormed regularly.

I feel very lucky. My dog (a gun breed but not trained) does all the chasing, but never kills, he does this high-pitched yelping when close but then veers off in the other direction once he is within a few metres of the rabbit. Yesterday, he found a baby owl in an apple crate and did all the usual yelping/plunging, scared it half to death no doubt, but didn't touch it, and was pathetically relieved when i shouted the 'leave it' command. He's a wuss!

My dogs are raw fed.
Id have been grateful that I didnt have to feed them that night.
But I have a morbid facination with watching this sort of nature.

On a serious note, I wonder whether the incredulity and horror at dogs killing things goes some way to explaining why some dog owners find it hard to understand why people are wary of their dogs.

What do you mean, curlew?

At least it was a wild one. My Greyhound killed my pet rabbit last Monday :( her hutch broke, she escaped and I didn't know. I let the dog out and there was all this terrible squealing, then sudden silence :( he didn't manage to eat her, he was very reluctant to drop her but he did after a minute or so of me bellowing at him to 'DROP IT! DROP IT RIGHT NOW!! '

I still haven't really forgiven him.

Aw, Cunny :( That's harder to get your head around. I rehomed the last of my chickens before Jas managed to scoff one. I knew it was a matter of time if I'd kept them. He did manage to grab them a couple of times, but didn't injure them thankfully. Given time, though, he would have twigged that the flappy, squawky things were actual chicken. Then he would never have left them alone :(

Oh cunny, that is terrible. We had guinea pigs but the dog never bothered them at all. It was only this wild baby rabbit she has done this to.

If I'm totally honest I was half expecting it one day, it was inevitable really, keeping an ex racing Greyhound and a rabbit. But it was still a horrible shock to open the back door to see him standing there, looking at me with a 'What?' expression on his face with the rabbit dangling from his jaws. He knew to leave her alone in her hutch or run, he'd completely ignore her, not even acknowledge her existance. The second she's out, she's suddenly fair game.

Very glad my chi only hunts flies... And doesn't even catchthem

I have an 18m old lab and my dog knows the leave it command, she will literally drop a pizza slice from her mouth mid chew if a say it and that's her fav food that she does not get very often at all. They can't pick and choose when they will listen and when they won't. Train train train I'm sure you could teach her to drop a rabbit on command before swallowing it with a little more practice. X

Lovely. At least it didnt pick up a rotting pheasant corpse from the manure heap and chow down on that.

Anyone want a whippet?

what if the rabbit had myxomatosis?

My husband, who fancies himself as a bit of a gundog expert, says the lab swallowed the rabbit she caught because she was following her instincts & protecting her prey from being taken away.

It's horrible to watch though & I'd be traumatised too. I've never forgotten watching one of our springers, who is the gentlest dog on the planet, catching a rat & shaking it to death. Thankfully she didn't eat it, but I couldn't get the squeaks out of my head for days.

Cunny I'm so sorry about your poor rabbit.

kilmuir I don't think it can cross over

Can I just ask how those of you who have perfected 'leave it' commands do this please?

I probably need to be more specific in what I'm asking . . .

Dog has just turned three. Great on recall and everything when there's nothing she's interested in (i.e I'm the only thing to play with), but when she gets a scent, she's off. We live in a rural area and she's off lead most of the time, and I want that to continue, but I also want her to come back to me sometimes so I know where she is.

Also, when she catches a rabbit, she doesn't seem to kill it immediately. She brings it to me, I feel queasy, than she trots about with it as it squeals (it is horrible). She usually wants to bring it home, which is fine (not really but nature and all ) . . but there is one walk where I have to put her back on lead before we cross a very busy road to our house. I don't want to go near her with a lead while a half dead rabbit is hanging from her mouth, but I would like to train her to drop it and come to me, away from said rabbit, so I can get her lead on.

Rabbits are the main problem - she caught a pheasant mid-flight once but gave that up for the promise of a Tesco gravy bone .. . .

I'm asking for the moon on a stick aren't I?

Dogs are designed to eat raw food like rabbits - so it won't be a problem. However, we had a dog that regularly caught and ate rabbits - and tended to eat them in pieces that were too large and would sometimes bring a whole (adult) leg up... normally in the most embarrassing place possible. Collie/terrier cross was the best rabbiter - and also got pheasants, and even once caught a wood pigeon out of the air (very impressive). Current lurcher hasn't caught any rabbits yet, much to DH's disappointment - he was planning rabbit stew on a regular basis when we were thinking about getting a lurcher.

Spottybanana, take a look here, follow the vid and practice, practice, practice start with relatively low value treats so you're not setting the dog up to fail and slowly move up to something really high value like chicken wings or raw meaty bones.

Give or drop would probably be a better command for handing over dead rabbits, leave it to my dogs would mean leave the rotting carcass on the sand alone, whereas drop would mean please drop the rotting seagull out of your mouth [sigh]

Thank you!

Just got back from doing the same walk. Thankfully no more bunny murders as I got her on lead before the spot she pounced on the rabbit. When we went past the site of the massacre she went sniffy mental. Obviously reliving the triumphant moment!
She seems to have had no ill effects from eating he rabbits. In fact her poos have been of excellent size and consistency!

We inherited back (long story) DH's old dog when his Mum died, - at the time we had a rabbit, house trained. The rabbit used to sit with him on his bed and Old Dog would look at it, and us, and back to it as if to say " you know, if I was 10 years younger..."

He was a lovely old boy but had definitely had his fair share of rabbits in his younger years.

Our lab does this too. I take our three for walks in an area which is overrun with rabbits and other wildlife and she caught and ate four in one week last year ...none the worse for it though. She's also caught and eaten 2 trout- one monster which I suspect she liberated from an outraged fisherman - and a flounder, and brought home a magnificent hen one day (I didn't want to know where it had come from, she went awol over a 6 foot wall and came back the long way along a busy road, mouth full of chicken and sat on the front doorstep to wait for me while I was out frantically searching for the bugger). Our youngest (10 months) - her daughter - caught a baby rabbit early this week and was really quite chuffed with herself...didn't get to eat it though. Our boy dog, a golden retriever, likes to chase and has caught rabbits but then just looks a bit bewildered and lets them go as soon as they squeak at him. Bless him...like most goldies he's a bit lovably thick very laid back and doesn't seem to realise that he could in fact eat stuff like that.

Actually, on a nicer note - I went out to our back garden the other day after hearing a bird going mental..it was a mother thrush yelling at our goldie (who is a BIG lad) looming over her chick who was down standing on the gravel and clearly just learning to fly. The wee thing was just looking at him with beak open, he was just standing looking back, tail very slowly going back and forth and giving it the big frowny "WTAF is THAT" look. It hopped on to my hand quite the thing and got taken back to its mum

TOTALLY AGREE: Sometimes seeing nature in the raw can be brutal.

Many years ago, my son was in the back yard with his tiny bunny, and a huge rottie came into the yard and snatched the bunny. When I heard the screaming from my 7yr son, I ran out, to see this bunny dangling from the mouth... Horrible for me...horrible for my son.

baby kittens? man, I would of started crying....