Every morning Rudra goes with me to the barn to help with the cows. He likes to hunt for mice, or any other animal that dares to come into the cows’ home without an invitation. Also he likes to make a nest in the hay and take a nap. Sometimes though he gets bored and goes back to parents’ house to nap on the sunny yard. Yesterday he hung out with me the whole time playing in the hay and dozing.
After Rudra and I finish taking care of the cows’ yesterday morning, we started walking back to parents’ house. When we got as far as the hay barn Rudra all of a sudden took off running towards the old woodpile and the black walnut trees. As I rounded the corner I saw him with a good size groundhog in his mouth which he was shaking very hard. He then ran to the house with the groundhog in his mouth. It was still alive. Sometimes the groundhogs die from fright by the time he gets home. That may have been the case, because by the time I got to the house it was dead and there was no blood.
Now we have this funny little thing we do after Rudra has gotten a pest (groundhogs will destroy your entire garden). He really loves it when we do it. We stand there and clap our hands and tell him he is such a good boy. He really likes it when everyone does it. You are supposed to do it at least three times on the day of the catch. If you don’t do it he makes sure to bring the dead groundhog to your attention when you come out of the house.
The next stage can go a couple of ways. Number one is that he immediately starts to eat the groundhog. Two is he lets it sit there for a couple of days and then he eats stewed ground hog. This is not bad in the winter time when it is cold since it does not smell much, but it is terrible in the summertime. The third way is interesting; he buries it, and lets it ferment for a week or two. Then he digs it up and has pickled groundhog. Rudra eats almost the whole groundhog every single time. That is unless we have to get rid of it because it smells so bad before he eats it.
He is a good dog, he eats everything he catches. No waste.
Submitted by Lakshmi Devi