Abundant Rodent Nooky - A Sign of Apocalypse?

Don't let my beauty fool you...

I don't know about your neck of the proverbial woods, but in mine, the rodents have Barry White on an endless loop on their little rodent iPods, and are getting their business ON. Especially the chipmunks. They are EVERYWHERE, and there is so much chipmunk nooky happening you can practically hear it as you sit outside on my deck trying not to think about chipmunk nooky.

Now it is all you can think about, isn't it. You are welcome.

But the weirdest thing that is going on is the rabbits. I am sure it is a sign of something, most likely some harbinger of the coming apocalypse, but there are more rabbits in our neighborhood than ever before. OK, it may have SOMETHING to do with the drop off in the feral cat population, and that is a story for another time, but when I walk the dogs in the early AM, we see no less than 6 rabbits inside of 30 minutes. In a very densely populated residential suburban neighborhood. No wonder The Bob saw a coyote running up the middle of our street recently. Between the rabbits and chipmunks and squirrels OH MY! it must be like a Vegas $4 buffet to a coyote.

But I digress. The rabbits. They are trying to nest. To have their little rabbit babies. In the middle of my back yard. Also known as Schnauzerland. I have two Schnauzers, one of which already has a notch on his bedpost for having killed a rabbit almost as big as he in our back yard about a month ago. Schnauzers were bred for catching and killing rodents. They are fearless and relentless in this pursuit. Gus, featured above, is a death machine. Rabbits, chipmunks, mice, moles, birds. All have come to an untimely demise in my yard.

So you would think that there would be a tiny sign put up by the fauna on our yard "Caution, beyond here be Schnauzers...Pass at your own risk" but no. The other day there was a rabbit, sitting stoically in the middle, smack in the middle, of my back yard, on top of a hole. Maybe more IN a hole, it had begun digging. When Gus got out there, the rabbit had taken its leave, but he began digging the hole up. He came up with a mouth of rabbit fur. I began pulling it out, and it was like a magician pulling scarves out his mouth. It just kept coming, but there was no rabbit. Just fur. Then I began cleaning the hole out. More fur, lots of grass, but no rabbits. Thank goodness. But obviously it was trying to build a nest.

All I can say is if it persists in this endeavor, Darwin may have his day in court. Survival of the fittest will be demonstrated. But I would rather NOT be dealing with more dead rabbits and baby rabbits all over my back yard. So I filled that hole in, and so far, no more digging. But my neighbor has been even more unlucky. After spending a pretty penny on new sod in his front yard, and watering it religiously to keep his investment alive, the same day we found the rabbit digging in our yard, he found one had dug a nice fat hole in his front yard. Right in his new sod. I have offered to rent the Schnauzers out to him.