Leave the squirrel guts at the door

A few days ago Kris found a dead squirrel in our backyard. Suspicious?...not really. Dakota's never killed a squirrel and he hasn't been outside as much with the cold weather so we just chocked it up to a weather anomaly (maybe he got struck by lightning), or he couldn't find his nut and froze while desperately searching for it...Kris buried the dead squirrel, end of story.

Today I was in the kitchen washing dishes. I had the front door open to let in some fresh air. All of a sudden I heard this ear piercing squeal followed by Dakota yelping, followed by Kris screaming at Dakota. I run outside thinking Dakota jumped the fence or is having a scrap with one of the neighbor dogs. I find Dakota frantically trying to find a way to get under the deck. Here's what went down. Dakota caught a baby squirrel. The squeal I heard was from the squirrel, and Dakota got a good couple of bites out of it before Kris yelled at Dakota, which gave the squirrel enough time to limp under the deck. Dakota eventually gave up but later in the evening practically knocked Kris over trying to get back outside. He paced the deck for awhile and made his rounds, then retired for the night.

I'm not a huge fan of squirrels but I would never wish a slow, painful death under our cold, damp deck on any squirrel, let alone a baby squirrel. Dakota must have been tired of admiring the chase from across the fence and when he saw his chance he seized the opportunity and succeeded...unless there's still a squirrel dying under our deck or a squirrel with nine lives scampering around with two bites taken out of it, eww.

I guess we know what happened to the other squirrel.

I do kind of feel like Dakota's real aggression is towards the rabbits that taunt him on our walks and he decided to take it out on the squirrels. We used to have all sorts of rabbits in our yard until the fence went up. Now they sit on the other side of the fence and have a stare down with Dakota, taunting him. When we go on walks sometimes there will be a rabbit who will skip on ahead and stay just enough distance from Dakota to drive him crazy. Naughty rabbits. One day Dakota will have his vengeance on the rabbits.