Wednesday, February 17, 2010

R.I.P. Nutria

Well, this is kinda hard for me to talk about. However, for the sake of the blog I will put my feelings aside and recount this story as objectively as possible. The day was Sunday, February 14, 2010 and John and I were taking the dogs for a walk near his house. It was a beautiful Valentine's Day complete with blue skies and white fluffy clouds. We were all excited for a relaxing, low key walk around the neighborhood. The walk started off at the back of the subdivision where there are a couple of little bodies of water and a retention pond. The dogs were having a blast tromping through the cat tails and tall grasses growing in the green water of the retention pond. As we were strolling around the pond, John and I noticed one of the big silver pipes that is used to drain the water from the surrounding areas into the retention pond. We thought it would be funny to see how confused the dogs got if we made noises through the pipe while they were on the other side. But we soon found out that it was too difficult to keep the dogs on the opposite side of where we were standing. So he stood at one end with his dogs and I made my way down to the other side with Sage. John called Sage's name through the pipe while Sage cocked her head to one side wondering where he was. She wanted to go inside, but I could tell something was holding her back. She was scared. After telling her it was "O.K." she found enough courage to make her way up the pipe toward John. I was sitting on top of the pipe and peaking inside. The inside was dark, so I quickly lost sight of Sage as the pipe curved upward. Almost immediately after I lost sight of her I began to panic a little bit and instantly regretted sending her in there. Then I heard her lose her footing on the slippery ridged pipe and freak out. She was stuck! My stomach knotted up and I realized that she probably couldn't turn around and come back out the way she came or continue upward toward John because it was too slippery. I yelled at John to tell me what was going on. He yelled back that Sage wasn't suck and that he thought there was a duck in there with her. I heard some grunting, squealing, and what I thought was quacking. Then I saw Sage trotting towards me with something in her mouth (as it turns out, she could easily turn around in the pipe). The first thing I could make out were two huge yellow teeth. It was a nutria...and it was still alive. Partly relieved and partly not, I ran up to John with Sage at my heels (still holding her prize). I didn't really know what else to do. As John's dogs saw Sage with something in her mouth, they chased her in order to steal it from her. But by the time Sage brought the poor nutria back to me and dropped it at my feet, it was dead. I felt bad for the little nutria. I won't be sending Sage into any more drainage pipes anytime soon. We've learned our lesson. Rest in peace little nutria, Sage didn't mean to kill you.

3 comments:

  1. awhh i knoww the feeling my dog just killed one of theese things. i looked it up to see what it was and came across your blog.. it was very helpfull.

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