Hare of the Dog

by

Randy R. Cox

We recently had the good fortune to have some relatives drop by for a long over due visit. These good people came all the way from their home in Florida, but having been Texans themselves once upon a time knew the value of a good story.

So it was that they brought with them a tale that would raise the eye and catch the attention of any self-respecting Lone Star gathering. This particular story happened to be the absolute truth, which can’t be said about the average Texas story.





Being true, we’ll change the names to protect the guilty. One of their neighbors, let’s call him Tiz just happened to have a nice Labrador retriever calling his backyard home. As Tiz came home from work, he checked on his dog only to find him happily tossing something white and furry up into the air, catching it, then tossing it again.

Upon closer examination the rag doll turned out to be a rabbit, a little dead from the ups and downs of his relationship with the dog.

No sooner had he taken the lifeless body from his dog’s mouth than he realized the rabbit looked a bit too familiar.

“Uh oh!” he thought. “This is not good! Not good at all!”

He called his friend, lets call him, Taint. “Taint! I’ve got myself a bit of a problem. My dog has been playing toss and catch with a rabbit. No! it’s too late for that; the rabbits dead, but I was just thinking the Smiths next door have a rabbit, and it looks a lot like this one.

Now, Taint wasn’t the kind of guy to leave a friend in need. He promised to come right over and work out a solution.

When Taint arrived he had a plan and took quick charge of things. They took that rabbit and washed all the blood off his fur. They used a hair dryer and fluffed him up so good, you’d think he was about to hop happily away, except this rabbit had hopped its last hop.

Next, they sneaked over to the Smith’s house and slipped that poor rabbit’s body into the cage there on the back porch.

No one would ever know the dog did it! When the Smiths returned from their vacation they would find the dead rabbit and assume it died peacefully in it’s sleep.

Late Sunday evening Tiz got a call from his neighbor. “Tiz, while we were gone did you see anything unusual going on over at our house?”

“Not a thing,” answered Tiz, giving his dog a dirty look. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” said his neighbor. “Two days before we left for our trip our pet rabbit died. We had a little funeral for the kids, said some words over him, and gave him a proper burial. We even placed a stone over his body. When we got back from our trip tonight, that rabbit was back in his hutch.”