Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
Training Rabbits
Can you keep a secret? Of course, they’re not rabbits.
Have to hurry up. Get my paperwork out of the way. A trip to the feed store is necessary. If they don’t have what I need, I guess I’ll stop by the grocery to pick up as many heads of lettuce as the produce manager will allow. Everyone jittery about the need to COVID-hoard, don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.
After two years, the kangaroos I purchased arrived. Took this long for paperwork, quarantines, and such to unwind so Fed Ex could deliver. You didn’t know they could do that did you?1
I have a plan. A maniacal laugh goes here, but I’m at a loss to spell it. Training these two darlings to recognize rabbits2 as their enemies, competition for the lettuce and other munchies I’ve been feeding them, has been in progress for the last three weeks. It’s my hope we’re ready to go by spring.
Don’t think me evil. My new pets aren’t expected to exterminate the local rabbit population. I’ll leave that to them. I’d be content if Joe and Matilda just scare resident rabbits into moving back to the open fields, well-away from the subdivision and my yard. How those rabbits vote in the next presidential election is up to them.
Been training with pictures and an old specimen from a taxidermist buddy. Pretty certain now, my mob of western greys will think rabbits are wallabies, poachers on their turf, and kick their little cotton tails down the road. Or, like I said, across the street.
So as far as the neighbors are concerned, Joe and Matilda are just oversized rabbits. Already scared the hell out of the Red Tail Hawk that lives in the woods across the street.
We don’t get stray dogs often. That’s not an issue. However, one joyfully unexpected benefit has been that local doggies, dragging their owners on leashes and considering my side yard their toilet are intimidated by my new pets. One Doberman, poised to make a deposit last Thursday took off, if you’ll pardon the phrase, like a scalded dog, mid-poop, when it saw Joey coming to investigate. Doobie’s owner’s feet didn’t touch ground until Doobie got home. Everybody learning lessons here.
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1 Don’t be silly. Of course, they don’t deliver kangaroos. Do they?
2 If you’ve followed my exploits any length of time, you know I’ve a running territorial conflict with the local varmint population. Because the hood is home to several PETA-types and because my spouse monitors my outdoor activities, I’ve resorted to various methods to discourage emigration of former woods and grassland denizens into my tiny prairie. Varmints presently hold a numerical advantage. Misguided types don’t allow nature’s forces to play out according to the original plan. They demand metro agencies remove, for example, foxes from our landscape. In the name of orderliness, they require the city eliminate natural “wild” perimeter refuges where hawks, falcons, owls, and snakes would take up residence. Natural predators for squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, possums, raccoons, and froufrou doggies are unwelcome. I merely seek balance.
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© spwilcen 2021
spwilcenwrites 1/15/2021
Ramblings 