Pablo Died Today - Part 2 (standard:other, 2742 words) [2/2] show all parts
Author: casio1933	Added: May 03 2008	Views/Reads: 2443/1815	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Pablo finds adventure - He fits well into his life in Virginia.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

After being accepted as one of the  "Saturday morning pack,” I began to
practice doing a lot of the things other male dogs do.  I discovered 
the pure pleasure of pissing on a car wheel.  Never have I since missed 
the opportunity to indulge myself whenever a strange car would enter 
the driveway.   If there were no new cars for a day or so I would just 
piss on the wheels of Mom and Dad's cars.   I honed my hunting skills 
to a fine edge and took up fishing (even though the other dogs did not 
fish). 

I was a constant practitioner of the fine art of hunting.   Catching
birds, small animals, and an occasional snake  (I didn't let snakes 
live), on a daily basis, made me the nemesis of the wild animal 
community of Sherwood Forest. I once caught a wild Norwegian Elk Hound. 
  He was only wild after he got caught.  I had been dozing in the sun 
on the wall of the carport, when the Elk Hound walked by ? headed for 
the garbage cans.   It was the easiest catch I ever made.  I dropped 
off the wall onto his back and "dug?in” with teeth and claws.  His fur 
was so thick I don't think I ever got to his skin, but it scared him 
shitless.  He took?off down across the yard yelping, jumping and 
running.   No rodeo rider on the toughest bronco ever had a wilder ride 
than I had on the back of that Elk Hound.   Getting off his back was a 
whole different experience. 

By the time we had crossed the yard and started down the street, I was
beginning to wonder what in hell I was thinking about in the first 
place.  My mouth was full of fur that felt like steel?wool, my ass was 
being driven up between my ears and if this son?of?a?bitch ever 
realized what was on his back, he was going to make a meal of me.   I 
had "f---ed up" ? bad.   As it turned out though, I managed to get 
myself untangled from his fur and fall off his back about a half block 
from the house.  I hit the gravel along the edge of the road at about 
twenty miles an hour.   After tumbling end over end a dozen times or 
so, I made a beeline for home.  I thought the bastard might have seen 
me. 

Since I had become a dog I did not eat much "wild” meat and brought most
of my prey home for Mom and Dad.   I don't think they ever developed an 
appreciation for my efforts to pay my own way.  After my encounter with 
the Cottonmouth Moccasin when I was a cat, I never played with snakes.  
I took every opportunity to kill them.  My Mom and Dad appreciated 
snakes least of all. 

When we moved to Sherwood Forest, there were quite a few snakes to be
found in the woods, along the creek in back of the house and around the 
lake across the way.   When we moved away, some ten years later, I had 
not seen a snake in seven years.  Dad was somewhat opposed to my 
indiscriminate extermination of the snake population  ? he thought 
nonpoisonous species were harmless and should be left alone.   Mom 
thought there was  "no such thing" as a harmless snake ? she liked my 
approach. 

Snakes were not the only things I killed instantly and without thought
or hesitation.  One Sunday morning I was dozing on the king?size bed in 
Mom and Dad's bedroom.  Dad was dressing for church.   He playfully 
flipped his new belt over my neck ? I killed it.  While the belt was 
not a total loss, cosmetically it was dead. 

Bird hunting was fun.  You could make it as difficult as you wanted.  Or
as easy as you pleased.  Birds are dumb.  If you don't hurt them, they 
faint most times when you catch them.   If you do hurt them, they 
mostly flutter a lot, squawk and die. 

Our next-door neighbors (Sue and Winston) had canaries. 

Every Saturday morning, when the weather was warm, Sue would place the
canary cage on the carport wall.   One warm Saturday morning, I waited 
until she had gone back inside the house.   The two canaries in their 
cage were singing cheerfully in the morning sun when I batted the cage 
off the wall onto the ground below.   The cage door flew open and the 
two birds flew out ? THE HUNT WAS ON. 

One of the canaries flew back under the carport and was later caught by
Sue.   The other one headed for the wooded area in back of the house, 
my territory.  I farted around all afternoon with that little yellow 
bastard.  Every time I got close enough to grab him, he would flutter 
off to another bush a few feet away.   I was getting pissed; and tired, 
and frustrated.   It was dusk; he must have been getting pretty tired 
too. I managed to swat him down.   He laid there, apparently  
"dead?as?a?doornail."   I picked up the "dead” bird and started toward 
the house.   My Mom was on the back stoop.  She saw me and called Dad.  
"Warren, come quick.   Pablo is coming across the back yard with 
something in his mouth ? it looks like a little yellow bird."   With 
that she ran down across the yard and I let her have my catch.   There 
was not enough meat on the skinny little shit to fill a hollow tooth 
anyway. 

Dad took the canary and checked him for a heart beat and puncture
wounds.  Though shallow, the heart was beating.  There were no 
punctures.  The dammed bird had fainted.  My Dad took the canary over 
to Sue and told her he had found the bird in the yard.  He thought it 
would be OK if she would put it in a warm place.   Sue told Dad the 
bird had fainted before and would be all right within a few minutes 
after she placed it in the cage with its companion. 

Sunday morning ? Mom was out in the yard when Sue came out of her house.
 Mom asked if the canary was doing all right.   Sue replied the bird 
was fine and was now  "his old self."  Mom then told Sue, that her cat 
had brought the bird in from the woods the previous evening.   Sue was 
very happy to have her canary back.   She had spent several hours 
looking for the lost bird after the "wind" had blown the cage off the 
carport wall.   She thought I was the  "nicest cat” for helping her 
find her bird and bringing it home. 

There are several techniques well suited for bird hunting, depending on
the time of year and the weather any one of them could be considered 
the best: 

In hot weather a lot of birds would bathe in the small stream in back of
our house.  I would stretch out on an old log that spanned a small pool 
and pretend to be a "bump on the log."   When a half dozen or so of the 
feathered ones were frolicking in the pool below, all I had to do was 
fall off the log into their midst.  It was not unusual to catch two 
birds with a single fall.   Using this technique, I got a lot of mud on 
my coat and I got wet a lot, but I caught a lot of birds too. 

During blustery, rainy weather, I would hide under the limbs of the
large loblolly pines along the edge of our lot.   The tree limbs came 
all the way to the ground and once past the outer foliage it was almost 
like being inside a tent.  Birds, trying to escape the weather, would 
fly inside.   When they saw me and became excited, I could usually 
catch one or two before they could find a way back out. 

One of my most remarkable bird hunting accomplishments included the
capture of three birds simultaneously.   It happened on a Saturday 
morning in February.   There were about eighteen inches of snow on the 
ground and it was still snowing.   Mom had put birdseed in the feeder 
and the birds were making good use of it.  I climbed to the top of the 
picnic table and waited until a flock of birds were on the feeder.   I 
leaped, from the table to the feeder ? the deep snow on the table 
hampered my leap and I barely managed to catch the edge of the feeder.  
The birds flew away and left me hanging by my claws some six or seven 
feet off the ground. 

Dad had built the feeder to discourage squirrels from stealing birdseed
and there was no way for me to climb up onto the feeder or to climb 
down.   I hung on for as long as I could and finally let go.  I fell 
into the soft snow below and went out of sight.   An ordinary hunter 
would have been discouraged by the experience. 

The snow continued to fall at a heavy rate.  My Dad went out and cleared
the deep snow off the picnic table and put birdseed on it.  He knew the 
birds could see me approach and fly away before I could get to the 
table.  He didn't consider my alternatives.  I climbed to the bench of 
the table and waited.  In a few minutes, I was covered with snow and as 
white as my surroundings.  I could hear birds fluttering above, pecking 
at the seeds and suet on the table surface above.  I slowly raised my 
head.  With near imperceptible movement, I brought my eyes level with 
the tabletop.  There must have been nearly twenty birds on the table 
when I sprang.  I caught one under each of my front paws and one in my 
mouth.  Being somewhat overzealous, due to my prior humiliation, I 
killed two of the birds outright.  I intentionally let the third one 
escape. 

When hunting small animals, it's easier to catch the young ones and
safer too.   Nothing gets as upset and as mean as a full-grown squirrel 
when you take hold of it.  It's like grabbing the business end of a 
chainsaw and not being able to let go.   Grown rabbits are not a lot 
better.   I have had a big buck rabbit kick the breath out of me, and 
drag me, bumping and bouncing, across a quarter acre before giving up.  
Rabbits do tend to  "haul ass” away from you if they get loose.   Don't 
f--- with Opossums or Skunks. 

High on my list of leisure time priorities is fishing.  I became an
expert at the small lake across the way from our house.  Often in a 
single afternoon I could exceed the State limit for small?mouth bass.  
Many of the fish caught, I carried home.  It got pretty tiresome after 
about a half dozen trips.  I never killed the fish I carried home and 
Mom or Dad would often find several still flopping on the carport when 
they arrived home from work.  I once caught a fourteen-inch bass. I 
nearly drowned, but I got his ass out of the lake and home.  Dad nearly 
shit his pants when he saw my fish ? still alive and flopping on the 
carport.  My Dad talks a lot about fishing.  He doesn't catch many. 

Besides fish, I caught a lot of frogs at the lake.  I carried most of
them to Mom and Dad.  Frogs are hard to kill and often I had to leave 
them under the back door mat to keep them from getting away.  I also 
hid some of my other game there to keep it away from Grumpy.  Mom got 
paranoid about going out that door without checking for those innocuous 
little bumps.  She squashed a bunch of the critters I placed under the 
mat before she started checking. 


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