a labrador with no taste for rabbit

lila admiring a bunny

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We’ve recently had a string of record-breakingly hot, dry days (and nights!) leaving the landscape brown and yellow with only a touch of green. This normally happens each summer, but we’re ahead of schedule. And the scarcity of greenery brings out Australia’s most notorious pest: the grey rabbit. Not native to this continent but introduced by an Englishman in 1859 for sport hunting, its numbers have exploded to plague proportions in some regions.

Until her very last days, our border collie Rosie worked hard to keep the rabbit population in check. She became highly skilled at stalking and swiftly exterminating those on our property. In the early years, however, she was not so adept and, on one occasion, I found her prey in a somewhat less-than-dead state. I shouted out to Phil to please come help me drown the poor creature. Somehow it was understood that my role would be to fill a bucket while Phil’s would be to carry out the rest. To his relief, the rabbit vanished while the tap was still running.

And now our puppy Lila has arrived on the scene. She has a strong curiosity about rabbits, but no killer instinct. Maybe it’s her laid-back Labrador nature, but she’d much rather admire a bunny than chase one. Or God forbid have one for breakfast. (My apologies for capturing her attitude through a flecked windowpane.)

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lila the bomb sniffer

lila at boot camp

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Not long after the arrival of our puppy Lila, I lay in bed one night listening to a podcast about Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit group that teams up puppies with prison inmates, who then live with and train the puppies to work as bomb-sniffing dogs, or service dogs for wounded soldiers.

I found this podcast pretty compelling…especially the description of the powerful and healing relationship that develops between dogs and prisoners — and I highly recommend listening to it yourself on the National Public Radio website — but what had immediate personal relevance and caused my eyes to snap open was learning how the dogs were matched with a career based on personality type.

The service dog constantly looks up at its owner and asks, “What do you want me to do now? Tell me what’s next and I’ll do it!” The bomb-sniffing dog behaves in a more assertive, more “in your face” way and likes to make decisions. When I heard this, I knew immediately that, had our Labrador Lila been recruited to Puppies Behind Bars, she most definitely would have been destined for bomb sniffing.

The challenge for me has been to try to convert some of Lila’s bomb-sniffing aptitude into more of a service dog mentality. Because I lack what you might call an “alpha” personality, this requires a concerted effort. Lila is an extremely confident, proactive little girl and I have to work overtime to keep up with her. The video accompanying this post shows Lila attending a “boot camp” run by a quirky taskmaster (wearing white knee socks in the background.) As you can see, Lila is very much her own dog.

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a dog with her bone

lila the bone eater

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What is it about a meaty bone??? A dog’s raison d’etre. Nothing can beat it. Not even a beautiful breast of chicken.

Our Labrador Lila is not yet five months old and I already find myself forced to whisper “b-o-n-e” whenever using the word out of context (the context of Lila receiving one). If I make the mistake of SAYING the word, even when she’s theoretically out of earshot, she will suddenly burst through the doorway and skid to a halt at my feet. Her whole body wagging with expectation.

If given what she so desires (specifically, half a lamb shank), she will briskly trot to a comfortable spot on the lawn and devote an entire afternoon to its consumption. With eyes half-closed with contentment. Gnawing it every which way. Maybe even extracting a couple more baby teeth in the process. What bliss.

Despite a reluctance to reveal my less-than-optimal control over the situation, I have included a video of how Lila’s bone-eating sometimes transpires.

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