To the Hunt!

We've just finished our morning constitutional, a long post-school-drop-off that gives Charley the chance to relieve himself of the night's burdens and to sniff every tree the leash allows.  The sniffing gives him ample fodder for rabbit-dreams on our return.  Indeed, as soon as I opened my laptop, he took the cue, collapsed on his furry blue blanket, and fell fast asleep.

Jack Russells are dreamers.  In our first doggie days, Charley's audible dreaming--consisting of body shakes, whining noises, and muffled woofs--alarmed me.  I made Martin wake him so to save him from the nightmares.

Now I know that was the wrong move.  Probably Charley had just cornered a rabbit and was wiggling his body down its burrow in hot pursuit.  Probably he was about to grab it by the ruff of the neck and have a delightful aperitif--and shake, shake--blast it all!  Foiled again by the stupid humans who not only block his sport during the day but also rudely conclude his best dreams.

This past Sunday, Martin took the girls and Charley to a tri-state Jack Russell convention at the foot of Mt. St. Helen's.  (Needless to say, I waved them off in good cheer.  I like Charley but the thought of a field full of Jack Russells was not my cup of tea.)  The girls proudly brought back frilly green and white fair-type ribbons that read "My Dog Kicked Ash."  These were awarded after the Aquatic Challenge, that is, Bobbing for Meat Products.  In layman's terms, Charley fished a hot dog out of a shallow barrel of water.  (How to drown a Jack: glue a sausage to the bottom of a pool.)

If that feat wasn't laurel leaf enough, he apparently also distinguished himself in the hunting challenge.  He could track and corner a rat in as little as seven seconds.  Tragically for him but happily for the rat, the rodent was caged before it was stuffed into a bush.  Charley and the other dogs batted him around but never got to him, which made me wonder just how traumatized Rattie was by the end of the day.  I imagine myself in a shark cage at a fair of large carnivores blinded by their hunting instincts.  That rat is now in intense counseling.

Charley knows where the rabbits dwell, and on twilight jaunts he's seen a few.  His body stiffens, his ears tower, his nose twitches, and he is off into the brush.  It is utterly glorious until the leash pulls smartly at his harness and his dreams crumble into a hundred pieces of dry canine kibble.  Poor lad.  He has almost pulled Merry under a fence in his pursuit but he is not quite strong enough.

I have to admit, though I generally like to see all creatures happy and healthy, I'd love to see Charley get his prize.  There is something really fabulous about watching a dog fulfill its breeding instincts.  Our sweet little dog who snuggles on the couch, belly-up, paws lolling about in a most undignified manner, is completely transformed when he sniffs a rabbit.  Then he is like Caesar, the troops, and the fluttering flags, all rolled into one: a noble animal, intent, precise, deft.

Until that fortuitous day arrives, there are just the tantalizing dreams.  As I write now, Charley curls around his paws, nose snuggled deeply in the folds of his blanket.  But perhaps in the expansive world of the doggie subconscious, he is poised, every muscle tensed, at the edge of a rabbit burrow.  To the hunt!  Best of luck, noble canine.