Murder, Most Fowl... or, Law & Order: Special Backyard Unit

I think I'm currently housing a murderer. A cold-blooded murderer quite happy with her work. And I have the photo to prove it.

So, the back story...

As many of you may remember, at the end of 2020, we unfortunately had to send Lucy Furr to her final slumber; her back legs had gone, and we did not want her to suffer.

It didn't take very long for The Boss to really start missing having a puppy around the house, so she started looking online. We ended up adopting a rescue dog, a Great Pyrenees named Finnley. Beautiful pup, about 5 years old. We do not know the story behind her rescue, she clearly has not been treated well in the past. But she is shy, a little afraid of things, very gentle... or is she?...

This afternoon:

The Boss came home from work early today. Let Finnley out in the back yard to do her thing (mainly sleep below the forsythia in the back of the yard) as usual. But today, she seemed to be "on" to something... makes a bee line to something under the deck near the rose bush... and before you know it...
Attachment 17582

Yup. Groundhog. Dead groundhog. (Well, that explains what chewed up and destroyed my broccoli and califlower, and did a real number on the zucchini...

The boss got ahold of me while I was taking a break and sent me the picture. She's horrified. I think Finnley was just trying to protect us. And as i remember, Mickey the Mutt (who was part Pyrenees) also hated groundhogs, but that's going back about 20 years.

...at least, I hope the poor thing is dead. If it's only stunned, I will have a REAL mess on my hands when I get home.

Finnley? She hasn't budged since the picture was taken. She is VERY proud of herself.

It's always something.

Congratulations on giving Finnley a home! Penny, in my avatar, is a golden retriever / great Pyrenees mix. She will turn 8 years old this winter. She was a rescue that came from where my wife worked for many years, the Appalachian Great Pyrenees Rescue Group here in Varina. They are actually located in the Richmond National Battlefield Park (Fort Harrison), just down the road from us.

Knowing the breed very well (I volunteer at the rescue group), I would wager that Finnley had the best intentions in mind when she wasted that ugly, fat, useless old "whistle pig". They can do considerable damage to gardens and such.

BTW - Finnley is a very nice looking girl!

Same with my now only black cat 3 years young, always brings home prey like mouses etc as if i'm not a good provider.....
THey just do what is natural, i can't be mad about it, luckily the cat here does not hunt birds, just mouses....
Thoug her food bowl is always full, fresh water 3 times a day, and some cat snacks...
My old main coone never hunted, but hated it to be outside just the backyard to get some sun rays...
Miss her still...

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Originally Posted by ad4mg

Congratulations on giving Finnley a home! Penny, in my avatar, is a golden retriever / great Pyrenees mix. She will turn 8 years old this winter. She was a rescue that came from where my wife worked for many years, the Appalachian Great Pyrenees Rescue Group here in Varina. They are actually located in the Richmond National Battlefield Park (Fort Harrison), just down the road from us.

Knowing the breed very well (I volunteer at the rescue group), I would wager that Finnley had the best intentions in mind when she wasted that ugly, fat, useless old "whistle pig". They can do considerable damage to gardens and such.

BTW - Finnley is a very nice looking girl!

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Well, she did just get a trip to the spa (bath, trim, nails, the works) on Saturday. And yes, she is.

Cost me, though. See, she decided that she didn't want to get up on one of the tables, or even move. So she sat down on the floor at the grooming salon and wouldn't budge. So it took two groomers to work on her... thus an extra fee.

That's what floored me about the whole thing. This is a very shy dog, a little skittish around people, has some anxiety issues, is DEATHLY afraid of ceiling fans (not the slightest clue WHY though)... and she goes after a groundhog, a BIG adult one (almost 2 feet long, weighed in the neighborhood of 30 pounds), grabs it by the neck with her teeth, drags it, shakes it until it's neck is broken... and then does that 2 or 3 more times until it's not just mostly dead, but all dead. (And no pockets holding loose change, either).

I wonder if your rescue group would have any connections that could tell us her backstory? A long shot, I know. But all the Greater Pittsburgh Great Pyrenees Club folks could tell us is that they got her via (at least) one other group, and that she'd been fostered by them for about 6 months or so. OTOH, maybe we're better off not knowing.

We used to have a saying when we couldn't figure out what happened in the home.
"The big white dog did it."

"Snow" , I had one as a kid.

Don't get me started on groundhogs. I'm usually a live-and-let-live sort but when they start ripping my house's siding off to make their burrows under the foundation...yeah, it's going to get handled.

Good looking dog, Ron.

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Originally Posted by PA5COR

Same with my now only black cat 3 years young, always brings home prey like mouses etc as if i'm not a good provider.....

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well, where are the premium mice you're putting on the table, huh? :)

It's nice to have a pet defending your ... its property. My first cat Tom, 1/2 of Tom & Jerry, had something in common with Finnley, his favorite spot was hidden under the forsythia where he could be our watchcat without being seen. No mice in the neighborhood and he was too slow to catch a bird, the bluejays caught HIM. When they dive bombed and pecked his head he ran for the house and sat on the window sill teeth chattering. Cats have a whole repertoire of sounds, when scared silly they make a chittering sound.

Sometimes they take on an animal that quickly turns the tables, Tom took on a possum. Fearing he'd be killed I took on the possum with my 32oz Louisville Slugger, the bloody thing just hissed at me. I'm not the sort to be beaten by a possum, I pummeled it thinking I'd leave a bloody mess on the ground, it still just hissed at me! Eventually it climbed out on a low branch of the Lonesome Pine, one good belt and it sailed over the fence, turned and hissed one last time and waddled away into the night. I came to the conclusion possums are made of rubber. Many years later in another galaxy far away I was relaxing on the porch one night when a neighborhood cat treed a racoon and ran up after it, BIG mistake. A moment later the cat let out a blood curdling scream, like LIGHTNING ran down the tree and disappeared behind a house.

With that in mind, I hope there are no bears in your end of Pennsy like there are along PA 609 that runs down the Delaware River. Before small towns sprang up connected by that 2 lane bacl road that thinks its a highway it was an Indian trail, before that it was a bear trail and still is. The actual trail runs from Albany to Baltimore, bears migrate... sort of. Every so often one is spotted in town and people freak out, instead of leaving the poor thing alone so that soon it would be on its merry way, it's CALL THE COPS!!! These days everything is call the cops, but I digress. A cop shows up, "Yep, that;s a bear alright.", then a couple of Game Wardens come with a dart rifle, tranquilize it, cage it, and haul it to a wilderness area where the unfortunate animal gets all confused thinking "Where am I?". Now WHY can't people just stay calm and watch from a safe distance? Hey, you don't have to go to the bears in a zoo when bears come to you!

Hey Boo Boo, let's go raid some pickanick baskets!

She’s done it again.

Took Finley for a walk as soon as I got home from work. As we went by a vacant house up the street, she started pulling me along the driveway. Suddenly lunged, and before you can blink, she had a small groundhog, basically a baby, in her mouth. Shook it and killed it.

She’s very proud of herself. And is currently patrolling the backyard, looking for more.

She’s not a murderer. She’s a Serial Killer.

Oops. She did again.

Got not one, but two this morning. Left a young adult in a dead, bloody mess in the backyard (that was fun cleaning up, let me tell you), then dragged another littler one back into the forsythia.

The Boss had to clean her up a bit, but she’s just fine. Very proud of herself, again.

I'm starting to think that this might be a trend. If we were all to look deeper, would we say that you're her enabler?

(insert jocular emotion illustration)

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Originally Posted by KG4CGC

I'm starting to think that this might be a trend. If we were all to look deeper, would we say that you're her enabler?

(insert jocular emotion illustration)

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Not me! I didn't let Finnley in the backyard yesterday, the Boss did. (It was her day off, after all). SHE'S the one to blame!:stirthepot:

Maybe Ron, take the talent and start a varmint getter service and supplement someones income?

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Originally Posted by WZ7U

Maybe Ron, take the talent and start a varmint getter service and supplement someones income?

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Well, just about ALL of the neighbors we've talked to would like to borrow Finnley for a few days. They're all QUITE happy that she's in the process of decimating the local groundhog population.

But i think we're going to retain her amateur status.

i won't lie: i sometimes regret that i can't let my critters out ... we don't really have much of a yard, and I'm a block away from i-81 so the chances of flat cat are pretty high.

Hate to say it but is Finnley the same way towards cats?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KG4CGC

Hate to say it but is Finnley the same way towards cats?

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Good question.

Don’t know. Aren’t many roaming cats in the neighborhood right now.

Update, almost 2 years later...

Yup. Miss Finnley is a serial killer.

Five.

Put her in the backyard when I got home from work today. Routine. Only we couldn’t find her a few minutes later. Turned out, she was at the back gate, growling, jumping, spinning... and then she had a big female groundhog in her mouth, shaking it. Dead by the time we got down there.

Once again, she is quite proud of herself! Good girl!