Winter's unforgiving embrace

This winter has been the most deadly I've experienced. We're almost through with our first winter in the country and the dogs are still loving it. Just yesterday, I came across a bloody mess along the river banks, no animals or fur or anything, just a whole mess of blood streaked snow. Megs reported that our German Shepherd caught a wounded or sick squirrel and killed it (she said the death scream from the squirrel was pretty bad), once our other 2 dogs figured out what he was up to, they commenced ripping the recently deceased squirrel to bits, Megs had to tackle each dog and pry what squirrel parts they hadn't swallowed from their blood soaked jaws, in the end she was holding a squirrel carcase in two hands and in about 10 pieces. She had to dispose of it high in a tree to keep our dogs from eating it. That's just the most recent episode in our dogs' thirst for blood or decaying animals. Since November we've had at least 2 raccoons, 3 rabbits, countless mice, 1 duck, a rotten turtle shell, and this week's squirrel. Each deceased animal has been torn from it's icy sarcophagus by one of our dogs, ripped up a little and finally removed from our dogs' jaws and thrown into a tree for it's final resting spot. Since it's pretty cold, none of the carcasses stink too bad...yet. It will be a fragrant spring thaw. We buy expensive dog food, and they'd rather eat poopy cat litter and dead wild animals. This week's squirrel was the first animal to actually die in the jaws of our dogs, all the rest have been dead when we discovered them. Winter doesn't waste time on the weak in Wisconsin.

Each animal's disposal has an interesting story. For instance, a raccoon was frozen in the river, the weather warmed up a little and the ice melted just enough for Lucy to rip the raccoon from its ice tomb, she ran down the path, carrying the raccoon by it's neck, it's lifeless body slapping her sides as she ran. Once I got the raccoon away from her I pitched it up into a large walnut tree, the raccoon slapped the side of the tree and came down and landed on my shoulder like a 20lbs soggy rotten sponge. It took 3 tries to get that raccoon to stay on a branch. Each time I missed the tree, the dogs would attempt to catch the carcase, like it was some kind of fetch game.