Back Story: Granddog vs. Groundhog

Pet-wise, it’s the best of both worlds. Whenever we long to have a dog, we call Amy’s daughter, May, and ask if we can have her pup, Rhesus, over for a few hours. Usually, she agrees. And he loves it, as we give his curiosity free reign throughout our house and backyard. When he wears us out, or starts to misbehave, we give him back.

Early on in this arrangement, we thought we needed an excuse to borrow the dog. So, we would tell May that we wanted to establish a pooch presence to trick our resident groundhog, Allen Street Al, into thinking we had a dog, so he would move away. Al wasn’t fooled. But, yesterday, Rhesus finally came through in the groundhog department and it wasn’t pretty.

The dog was upstairs with Amy and I was down in my office, which happens to look out under our deck into the backyard, when I noticed a young groundhog snooping around just outside my window. I could tell it was young, because it was on the small side. I toyed with the idea of calling upstairs to tell Amy to let the dog out, but thought better of it as the groundhog seemed to be leaving. I figured it was checking to see if Al had abandoned his digs next to our foundation. He has not.

A couple minutes later, I looked up again just as Rhesus was rocketing across the backyard at top speed. I have never seen him move so fast, not even when he takes runs at the fence to Chickenland to scramble the flock. I immediately realized that he was after the youngster that had just been poking around outside my window. At the same time, Amy’s cries for help could be heard from up in the kitchen. I decided I better get involved.

When I got to the deck, there was a terrific commotion in the bushes by our back fence. I had wrongly assumed that the groundhog would easily make it to the escape hole under the fence. I guess it wasn’t familiar enough with the turf to find it fast enough and had been cornered by Rhesus. The groundhog was growling and the dog was barking. The bushes were swinging every which way, but it was so thick, I couldn’t see them.

Groundhogs can be quite dangerous when cornered. And, of course, they have very sharp teeth. I decided I better break it up. I was afraid the pup would get hurt. So, I waded into the thicket, calling to the dog, which, of course, completely ignored me. Even though I couldn’t see, I could tell he'd gotten hold of the ground hog and was shaking it. The animal broke free and headed for another thicket, where it found itself trapped in a corner made by the back fence and the chicken run. I reached in and grabbed the dog by the collar, but he wouldn’t give up. Finally, I had to pick him up (he weighs about 40 lbs.) and carry him, struggling to get free, back into the house, where I inspected him for bite marks. Fortunately, there were none.

Later in the afternoon, after our granddog had gone home, I spied Al dining on some cracked corn and crumble at the trough out in Chickenland. He looks docile enough. He never growls at me when I go out to chase him. He usually waits until I am within a couple of feet of the fence, before he deigns to lope off to his escape hole. But he is big, about three times the size of the youngster Rhesus went after. I dread the day those two tangle. But I doubt it will ever happen. Al knows his way around. He has all the escape routes in his head. And he is old enough to know that discretion is the better part of valor.