Our black chihuahua Shadow recently got sick. We noticed he refused to eat and wouldn’t jump up on the furniture on his own. He looked kind of scared all the time too. We checked his body and legs and he didn’t appear or act like he had any pain anywhere and wasn’t limping. On the second day of this behavior, we figured we’d better get him checked out, so we took him to the vet. They checked him and did blood work. He didn’t have an issue with his anal sacs, as Socks once did, so that wasn’t the issue, and his blood work came back fine, no issues. He was prescribed a minor pain pill for any pain he might have, everyone thinking maybe he fell when jumping off of our high bed or something. We have steps for the dogs next to the bed, but they sometimes get excited and skip the steps. Nope, it didn’t seem to be an injury either.

This was about a week ago, and Shadow perked up a couple days later and returned to normal again. Well, the other day, as I was mowing the lawn in the backyard, I stopped at what looked like a large dark spot in the lawn, next to our chain link fence. I stopped the lawnmower and took a closer look. After examining the spot closer, I realized what I was looking at, and almost vomited. The horrible smell, along with looking at the mess, was just overwhelming. It was the remains of another bunny, and there wasn’t much left of it. I could see a few feet, a lot of rotting guts, bones, and a portion of its head. The rest was bugs, flies and maggots, all feasting on the carcass. It was really something worthy of a Stephen King novel, something I hadn’t ever seen in-person, only in the movies and read in books.

I had been trying to get the lawn mowed before dark, and I was already cutting it close when I found the horrible mess, so I used that an an excuse to run in the house and ask Sandy if she could help me by cleaning up the mess quickly, while I finished the lawn, so we could get it done by dark. We didn’t want the dogs getting at it again, as this had to be what effected Shadow several days earlier–though it had zero effect on Tiger–but he might be just a little smarter than Shadow when it comes to what to eat and what not to.

Sandy knows I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to things like this, and I can easily start gagging and vomit myself, just seeing or smelling a pile of vomit from a dog or another human, so she accepted the task, got a bag and gloves, and cleaned up the pile, tying the bag, and putting it in the garbage can, while I quickly finished mowing as it got dark.

It was pretty dark by the time both of us finished our tasks. The next day was garbage day, so we took the garbage can to the curb for the automated garbage truck pickup. The next morning we had one more bag of garbage from the house to be thrown out, so I walked it to the can at the curb before I left for work and found that the garbage can itself was covered in maggots. It looked like someone had poured a bunch of rice on the cover, until I looked closer and realized it was moving. Eeeew. It wasn’t easy to flip the lid up to open it without touching one, but I managed, and oh, the stench. There it was again. I quickly threw the garbage in, closed the lid and left. Had I stayed a moment longer, I would have left my breakfast there as well.

Kevin was off work that day, so while I was at work, Sandy had him wash the garbage can out completely and hose it down thoroughly before returning it to the backyard. That wrapped up our entire fiasco with Bunny #2. Shadow and Tiger killed another bunny last winter, as you might recall, I think I posted that one on my website as well. I don’t know how they always manage not to get a single scratch or blood or anything on them when they do this, or if maybe just one of them (my guess would be Shadow) does the actual killing, but they’ve managed to not get “caught” yet. Bunnies certainly must not be very good fighters. The bunny murders are always pretty mysterious and we haven’t caught them “in the act” yet. We’re really curious though, as they’re such friendly and playful to our family and relatives (except Mikie) and you’d never think they were even remotely capable of carrying out such a task. No, I didn’t take any photos this time. I have my limits. But at least this solved the mystery of what effected Shadow the previous week. If we had only gone out and checked the yard at that time, we might have saved a $300+ vet bill. Live and learn.