The Story of the Hunt

by Blaise Gentile

This is my story for the folks of The Rip Van Wrinkle club.
I’m a rabbit hunter. I am a Pharaoh Hound.
My humans tell everyone this is my purpose in life and they would be right.
It’s the one thing I was created for and the one thing I do best.

Now, I have lots of doggy friends that also love the hunt but, you see none of them can do it quite like I can. I have an intense prey drive, incredible eye sight & hearing to go along with a great sense of smell, making me the best at what I do. Now to catch these furry little creatures I also have to be very smart. Rabbits are fast and cunning and have the agility that any of my friends would gladly trade for a whole bowl of pizza crust! Catching rabbits can be done and I’m going to tell you how I do it (riveting isn’t it).

I take my human to my favorite field every morning. Today the grass is a perfect height for rabbit hunting, just taller then they are and it gives them good cover but, with my nose down I can sniff them out. It doesn’t take long and BAM I’m on to one. It’s a older male and he tries all the tricks he knows not to get caught! He goes left then right then left again. Now I’ve got him running out of the cover and, being that I have no help from my friends, I’m still following close behind. I know if I just follow him he will out run me so now I have to be smart! I chase him toward a group of small bushes this is my chance I know if I break off the chase and go around the other side of the bushes he will think I lost him. The rabbit sees me break off, he heads for the cover of  small bushes and when he goes through the bushes guess who’s there on the other side GOTCHA!!

There’s a scream as the rabbit knows he’s done, and then I hear RELEASE!!! I let him go it’s hard but, I know tomorrow’s another day. Wasn’t that fun!!

Now there’s another kind of rabbit hunting my human calls it Alice in Wonderland hunting, still a rabbit, but not quite real. Here I have friends, now I can do things a little differently. The rabbit is just as fast, just as cunning but, when there’s three giving chase it’s much easier.

With the rabbit right in front of us my human will hold me back to give the rabbit a head start and off it goes. Now one of us, usually the young not so experienced dog, will give chase head down and follow the rabbit wherever it goes. He’s never going to catch that thing!! But me and the cute little lady on the other side of me knows to let him do all of the hard work. We’re going to fan out we’re going to cut across the field to cut off the prey. This strategy works perfect and this time the pretty lady guess’ right and BAM, she catches it and before any humans get to her she shreds the rabbit to pieces. Today she eats, maybe next time it will be my turn but, if the other guy doesn’t learn how to hunt he’ll never learn how to feed himself and will need his human so he can survive. What kind life would it be if you couldn’t provide for yourself?  So that’s the story of the hunt.