Attila is a good dog.
A couple days ago, Pepercorn, a New Zealand/Silver Fox cross, and one of my most productive does died.
Attila is a half shepherd, half husky, that we got from a rescue when she was about nine weeks old. She and her siblings were trapped as feral the week before. They had been dumped in a cornfield as pups and left for dead. Surviving on what they could catch in the field.
I lost count of how many escaped rabbits she has caught without harming somewhere in the low 20’s.
A couple nights ago, Attila and I went out to the rabbitry to work. In warm weather she sometimes goes in ahead of my through one of the sides that’s open for ventilation, other times she waits for me to open the door. This night, she went in ahead.
I opened the door, glanced at my clipboard with the chore sheet, set down the clipboad, glanced down the aisle and there they were…
Attila was laying at the end of the aisle with a large lump between her paws and she was actively licking it.
As I approached I could see it was a good sized silver fox rabbit. When I got up to them, I could see it looking back at me. I reached down quickly and got a hold on it. I told Attila she was a good girl. She was holding an escaped replacement doe, one paw on it’s neck, one paw behind it’s rump, licking it and keeping it calm while she restrained it.
GOOD GIRL!
I put the doe back in her cage, latched it and double checked the latch (I never liked the latch on that cage, I should replace it with a better one…)
Then Attila headed straight back into the rabbitry extention, sat under a cage and set her gaze on it.
This is a sign. Attila does this when a litter is kindled, a kit dies, or something in the cage requires my attention. So I asked Attila what the issue was, and typical of her, she didn’t answer, she just looked at the cage. When I got the cage with Peppercorn and her 10 day old litter I saw Peppercorn laying on her side, motionless and not breathing.
Once what had happened had settled in, I checked the kits, all well filled out and active, some with their eyes open already and tried to figure out where I could foster them. I settled on a rex with a small litter of her own that were just a couple days younger. This doe’s track record wasn’t so good, she had raised as many kits as she lost, but it came down to that or hand feeding them until I could get them on solids.
In the past couple days, this doe has proven herself worthy of the task.
Oh, and like I said, Attila! Good girl!