Hunting Season

Hunting season has officially begun. I'm not talking about the hunting for which you need a license and wear bright orange clothing. No, I'm referring to Max's hunting, of course.

Max has been going outside periodically for the past several months, but we hadn't seen any evidence of any kills until very recently. Sometime last week we found a mostly-headless mouse on the stoop outside the house, but we couldn't attribute it to Max definitively. It wasn't until this past weekend that we had confirmation that he was up to his old habits.

Saturday morning, Anders and I were downstairs while Corinne slept in. I had let Max outside, but hadn't seen him come back in the house yet. Then I heard light footsteps coming down the stairs from upstairs, and Anders had a strange look on his face as he looked in the direction of the footsteps. It was Max coming down the stairs, and he had what at first appeared to be a brown stuffed animal in his mouth. I quickly realized that it wasn't a stuffed animal - it was a squirrel (dead, as they always are). Apparently Max had brought the animal in the front door, and when I didn't give him the recognition and praise that he expected, he decided to go upstairs to see if sleeping Corinne would oblige. It's a good thing that I closed the upstairs door, causing Max to return back down the stairs.

Anders was still very confused by the situation, but once Max dropped the squirrel onto the floor and started batting it around, he was no longer confused. Now he KNEW that he didn't like it. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get the squirrel away from Max while simultaneously making sure that crying Anders doesn't get in the line of fire.

I finally got the squirrel from Max, tossed it outside (where a coyote later found it and presumably had a snack) and returned to clean up the blood and comfort Anders. And so, 2010 hunting season begins.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

8 May 2010