Bird killers

[Lynda Kamrath]

There has been a beautiful young varied thrush around our place the last few weeks and I have been enjoying watching him.  Then yesterday he flew into our window and was knocked out.  I went out to get him and Zeppo ran past me and grabbed him.  I tried to get him to put the bird down and when he did, I picked up the bird and Harpo jumped up and grabbed him out of my hands.  They pulled him back and forth like a toy until he was definitely dead.  I was so mad at them.

[Kaitee and Orwell]

Most of us have goldendoodles or labradoodles. Poodles, labs, and goldens are all bird dogs. 

My yellow lab killed newly hatched baby birds every spring. It was sad, but we think she just wanted to play. The baby bird's bodies didn't have a lot of trauma on them. 

Now, I'm just waiting for the day Orwell discovers the same thing. But maybe he won't because our new yard doesn't have very many places to build a nest. 

[Jess & Stewart]

Stew did this once when he was about 5 months old. Shot out like a cannon to the end of the leash & grabbed a bird. He WOULD NOT drop it & sat up straight with in his mouth then started pacing, whining, crying like he wanted a place to hide it. I finally got him to drop it & it was definitely dead. I attached a picture. He seems proud of himself!

He was definitely tapping into his instincts except I don't know where retrievers/poodles got the reputation that they have a soft mouth- Stew definitely does not & guards like a hellion sometimes!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

My dogs are bird killers also.  I tried to rescue  a bird that was stunned and used the poop shovel to keep the dogs away and kept yelling for my dh to call the dogs inside.  The bird woke up and was so shocked by the commotion, that it had a heart attack (?) and died.  All of this at 6 a.m. and I was in my pajamas!

[Lynda Kamrath]

We have had plenty of hummingbirds who also fly into the window and are knocked silly.  I pick them up and put them on a washcloth and they eventually come around and fly off.  We even had one hummer who was wound up in spider webs and was exhausted fighting to free himself.  My husband held him and I pulled off the spider webs with a tweezers and when we got them off, he just flew off.  They are quite resilient little birds.