Bess and the bunnies

Bess, the border collie, lives in a world of her own. Admittedly, it is a world within a world. But she zealously protects hers from ours behind a veil of charm, simplicity and innocence. She is in short a border collie boasting impenetrable borders.
But there is one incongruity in her character that belies her passive demeanour and wide-eyed innocence. And that is her propensity, long-ingrained I am sure, to make mincemeat of rabbits. Give Bess a sniff of a rabbit, or even more chilling, a sight of one, and Bess turns into the doggie equivalent of a homicidal maniac. I have no doubt that if we were to have the misfortune of all the infamous maniacs who putrefy history gathered watching Bess and the bunnies, they would say with one voice, “Now, that’s class!”
One event, more than any other, exemplifies this. It happened when Bess was in the charge of my then partner, now husband, Mike. Mike, too, often dwells in a world of his own, so it was some time before he discovered the dog he was supposed to be taking for a walk was no longer walking. Instead, Bess was digging frantically 100 metres back in their shared paddock. Despite calls to resume the walk, the normally subservient Bess refused such demands and proceeded about her self-imposed task with ferocious intent.
Mike approached, only to recoil in horror as Bess extracted from the burrow she was excavating the first of many baby bunnies. The killing, for such seemed an inevitable consequence given Bess’s passion and commitment to task, was mercifully quick. But that didn’t stop Mike getting on the cellphone to me in a panic.
I gave a deep sigh and for the moment set aside the politics of Paramount for the events of the paddock. I had been there before. Many a bunny had taken the train to Bunny Heaven with Bess as their enthusiastic conductor.
“There’s another one,” said Mike down the phone, his voice displaying his anguish. “And another.”
“How many’s that?” I asked calmly.
“Three, I think. No, four. Five.”
By the time Bess finished her killing-spree the number was eight, maybe nine, despatched with gay abandon and, mercifully for the bunnies, now inhabiting a Bess-free world. Bess, in return, happily returned to her own.
That night we three sat quietly. Mike was clearly in shock. I thought to myself “welcome to the farming world Mike” but said nothing. Bess just lay there with a quiet smile enlivening her normally passive face. But then she lifted her head.
And sniffed.
“Oh God, not again,” I heard Mike cry.
“You deal with it. I’m going to bed.”
MFI