A few weeks ago, my two Staffords started spending a lot of time hunting around under the house. This in itself isn't unusual, if there's rats or mice around, they will sort them out. But now their behaviour was different, much more amped and wound up, they would come inside for a few minutes then straight back out again. We noticed that - highly unusually - they weren't spending most of their time asleep on my couch. This went on for several days but they didn't appear to be catching anything (luckily, they've never developed a taste for rodents, preferring instead to bring you the carcass, a pleasing behaviour, unless you happen to be in bed at the time).
Now possums will get the dogs' blood boiling in an instant, and shooting them out of trees at night and letting the dogs despatch the creature when it hits the ground, that's a fairly regular occurrence. But possums don't frequent the underside of my house. Rabbits will occasionally be stupid enough to come up to the house (goodbye, rabbit), hares too, but the dogs can never catch hares.
One night at bedtime, I put the dogs in their cage in the laundry as usual, only for them to start whining to come out after 5 minutes. Again, a very unusual behaviour. It was about 11pm. The laundry door to the outside is right next to the spot where they were spending most of their time getting agitated. So I very quietly opened the door, let them out, and within about 2 seconds there was an almighty guttural roar from the dog, a shriek from the bitch, and it was ALL ON.
Being dark I couldn't see what they were after, I could just hear the banging and snarling as the dogs smashed themselves into the piles under the house. This went on for about 30 seconds, the dog making a noise the likes of which I've never heard a Stafford make in 50 years. The bitch tends to leave the dog to get on with the hard work and then leaps in at the last minute to deal a fatal bite or two...
Suddenly they were off out from under the house and down the deck into the garden. Whatever it was they were chasing was making a heroic last stand. But it wasn't enough - the dog crashed into a flax and let out a helluva roar, yelped a bit, roared a bit more and then... all over. I got a torch and went for a look.
I have never ever seen a Stafford so worked up. Not for cats, pigs, possums, anything.
What he had caught was entirely unexpected. I had assumed it was a cat... but it was in fact a ferret-polecat hybrid. One of New Zealand's claims to fame, thanks to a woeful history of habitat destruction and introduction of pests, is the creation of the world's largest population of wild (feral) ferret-polecat hybrids. These are evil, nasty animals, not so little either, this one was the length of a normal tabby cat. And they are extremely wiley, very, very rarely seen alive, only ever dead in a trap.
And far out did it stink. Utterly revolting. And quite unlike anything I'd smelt before, we catch plenty of stoats in our traps but they don't stink like this did. And it was that smell that had got the dogs so worked up.
The next morning I took a bit of a crappy photo with the wife's phone and chucked the carcass in the offal pit, gave the dogs a bath (they stank) and congratulated them for their tenacity.
Some 4-5 days later, I was watching TV with the dog on my lap, fiddling around with his jowls as usual, when I noticed a swelling under his jaw. It felt like a swollen lymph node, about the size of a small grape. Hmmm. I let it go for a couple of days, then checked again - it had grown. A lot. Now about the size of a golf ball. Not good. Dog was a bit listless, not his usual self. So, off to the vet.
Vet wasn't sure. Could be cancer, could be a swollen node due to infection, but no outward signs of anything else wrong. So we did a fine needle aspirate, and with the tech these days the vet and I were able to inspect the sample on her phone! In great detail! The sample looked very odd, full of stuff that the vet thought was highly unusual. So the sample went to the lab and I waited. I hate waiting.
When the vet phoned, she was highly excited. The sample analysis showed a virulent bacterial infection that had created an abscess, and it was growing at an alarming rate. Great, I said, why the excitement, exactly? The type of bacteria wasn't something the lab person had seen before and this generated lots of questions. I was fully interrogated as to what the dog had been up to, where he had been. Hunting? Yes. Injuries? Not that I know of. Anything else? No. Er. Maybe. I remembered the altercation with the mustelid. Did I notice any bites after they tangled? No. Without being sure what it was, the dog was prescribed two types of antibiotics and pain relief, and here we are two weeks later all fit and up for it, the abscess is totally gone.
But that's what it was, the ferret-polecat hybrid. I fetched the carcass from the offal pit - it had hardly rotted being mid-winter - and sent it off to the lab at their request. Weird what interests some people. No charge to me -just for interests sake. The results were conclusive, this filthy creature had such a variety of dangerous bacteria living in its mouth that a bite to a human hand could have been extremely nasty indeed, the kind of bite than can quickly lead to sepsis if not attended to fast. It's being written up in the veterinary journal I hear, with formal identification of the bacteria required as part of the overall pest control effort. Important to know these things if you're a livestock farmer.
As it turned out, the dog's immune system was in bloody good order, and had contained the infection to the site of the bite, it hadn't spread into his blood. It had taken a couple of days for the abscess to get going, and I should have acted immediately, because it was growing fast. A weaker dog would have been in real trouble, said the vet. It must be all that venison, goat, feral pig and home grown veg that he eats! Because that is exactly what they do eat, proper food.
So here's the culprit. A ferret-polecat hybrid. To be exterminated at all costs.
View attachment 87395
Now possums will get the dogs' blood boiling in an instant, and shooting them out of trees at night and letting the dogs despatch the creature when it hits the ground, that's a fairly regular occurrence. But possums don't frequent the underside of my house. Rabbits will occasionally be stupid enough to come up to the house (goodbye, rabbit), hares too, but the dogs can never catch hares.
One night at bedtime, I put the dogs in their cage in the laundry as usual, only for them to start whining to come out after 5 minutes. Again, a very unusual behaviour. It was about 11pm. The laundry door to the outside is right next to the spot where they were spending most of their time getting agitated. So I very quietly opened the door, let them out, and within about 2 seconds there was an almighty guttural roar from the dog, a shriek from the bitch, and it was ALL ON.
Being dark I couldn't see what they were after, I could just hear the banging and snarling as the dogs smashed themselves into the piles under the house. This went on for about 30 seconds, the dog making a noise the likes of which I've never heard a Stafford make in 50 years. The bitch tends to leave the dog to get on with the hard work and then leaps in at the last minute to deal a fatal bite or two...
Suddenly they were off out from under the house and down the deck into the garden. Whatever it was they were chasing was making a heroic last stand. But it wasn't enough - the dog crashed into a flax and let out a helluva roar, yelped a bit, roared a bit more and then... all over. I got a torch and went for a look.
I have never ever seen a Stafford so worked up. Not for cats, pigs, possums, anything.
What he had caught was entirely unexpected. I had assumed it was a cat... but it was in fact a ferret-polecat hybrid. One of New Zealand's claims to fame, thanks to a woeful history of habitat destruction and introduction of pests, is the creation of the world's largest population of wild (feral) ferret-polecat hybrids. These are evil, nasty animals, not so little either, this one was the length of a normal tabby cat. And they are extremely wiley, very, very rarely seen alive, only ever dead in a trap.
And far out did it stink. Utterly revolting. And quite unlike anything I'd smelt before, we catch plenty of stoats in our traps but they don't stink like this did. And it was that smell that had got the dogs so worked up.
The next morning I took a bit of a crappy photo with the wife's phone and chucked the carcass in the offal pit, gave the dogs a bath (they stank) and congratulated them for their tenacity.
Some 4-5 days later, I was watching TV with the dog on my lap, fiddling around with his jowls as usual, when I noticed a swelling under his jaw. It felt like a swollen lymph node, about the size of a small grape. Hmmm. I let it go for a couple of days, then checked again - it had grown. A lot. Now about the size of a golf ball. Not good. Dog was a bit listless, not his usual self. So, off to the vet.
Vet wasn't sure. Could be cancer, could be a swollen node due to infection, but no outward signs of anything else wrong. So we did a fine needle aspirate, and with the tech these days the vet and I were able to inspect the sample on her phone! In great detail! The sample looked very odd, full of stuff that the vet thought was highly unusual. So the sample went to the lab and I waited. I hate waiting.
When the vet phoned, she was highly excited. The sample analysis showed a virulent bacterial infection that had created an abscess, and it was growing at an alarming rate. Great, I said, why the excitement, exactly? The type of bacteria wasn't something the lab person had seen before and this generated lots of questions. I was fully interrogated as to what the dog had been up to, where he had been. Hunting? Yes. Injuries? Not that I know of. Anything else? No. Er. Maybe. I remembered the altercation with the mustelid. Did I notice any bites after they tangled? No. Without being sure what it was, the dog was prescribed two types of antibiotics and pain relief, and here we are two weeks later all fit and up for it, the abscess is totally gone.
But that's what it was, the ferret-polecat hybrid. I fetched the carcass from the offal pit - it had hardly rotted being mid-winter - and sent it off to the lab at their request. Weird what interests some people. No charge to me -just for interests sake. The results were conclusive, this filthy creature had such a variety of dangerous bacteria living in its mouth that a bite to a human hand could have been extremely nasty indeed, the kind of bite than can quickly lead to sepsis if not attended to fast. It's being written up in the veterinary journal I hear, with formal identification of the bacteria required as part of the overall pest control effort. Important to know these things if you're a livestock farmer.
As it turned out, the dog's immune system was in bloody good order, and had contained the infection to the site of the bite, it hadn't spread into his blood. It had taken a couple of days for the abscess to get going, and I should have acted immediately, because it was growing fast. A weaker dog would have been in real trouble, said the vet. It must be all that venison, goat, feral pig and home grown veg that he eats! Because that is exactly what they do eat, proper food.
So here's the culprit. A ferret-polecat hybrid. To be exterminated at all costs.
View attachment 87395
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