His nose, my flashlight

Ernie the intrepid and I went out for the nightly walk.

Bog-like conditions from leftover rain don’t faze him; visibility near zero, no problem. And throw in the scent of a rabbit, swoosh………. his twenty pounds stretch the leash as taut as a mooring line in a hurricane. If they put a rabbit in front of a railcar I think Ernie could pull it.

Of course, he sniffs near ground level every step of the way. My night sight is good and I can distinguish objects fairly well. But Ernie has bested me every time: his nose is quicker than my eyes. The proof is that he has already flushed out rabbits on a couple of evenings and my flashlight was there simply as witness.

Last evening was a memorable example, with a twist.

There was no moonlight, and the stars in the Texas sky were so numerous and crisp that I stopped to imagine myself on a 640 light year trip to star Betelgeuse. How many human lifetimes is that?

I didn’t have an instant to calculate: the fantasy was yanked from my mind as Ernie was onto something big. When he is in that mode you just hang on and go where he does. Sure enough I turned the beam west of his nose and there was a small gray rabbit in the pasture.

WAY TO GO ERN!

This one was so young it was rattled and didn’t know where to go to escape the raging beast. The chase was on.  Ernie panted and yelped feverously. Leash in one hand I tracked the rabbit with the light in the other. After a few moments of circling the hare got on-the-job training and dove straight through the neighbor’s wire fence.

Ernie was left gasping in frustration. After another few minutes to walk it off, we went back inside.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

During the night Ernie was murmuring barks, and panting, but he was still curled up in REM sleep. I bet he was dreaming that he got the prey.

WAY TO GO ERN!

I hope he did, after all that work he deserved a conquest.