Dog Kills Deer "Go Spot. Go!"

My bulldog apparently killed a deer yesterday.

I was patching a screen door that my other dog (Hank) was trying to scratch through in his panicky reaction to some thunder earlier.

My wife screamed, "There's a dead deer in the back!"
Phoebe was standing guard over her kill - growling to tell Hank not to come close.

Phoebe was visibly traumatized and shaking. I don't think she knew if what she did was good or bad. She was waiting for praise or reprimand from me. My wife was hollering and trying to calm her down at the same time. Hank would come around and Phoebe would growl. She was either still hyped about the kill or was trying to guard her kill (or both.)

I finally got the wife and Hank to go into the house and told Phoebe nonchalantly that everything was okay.

We went to investigate the dead deer.

The deer’s neck looked to be broken with her head bent back giving her a terrible looking frozen "J" shape. Her face and body was bloody but not punctured. She'd been dead for several hours and the flies and ants were starting to settle in.
There were signs of struggle since the fence was bent up and the ground around her was dusty.

I greeted and calmed Phoebe down some as we talked it over. Phoebe was proud and excited and looking for some "what do we do with it?" leadership. We stood over the deer some and just savored the primal moment.

I went and got a rope from the barn, tied it around the deer’s neck and dragged it some three acres into the woods. Phoebe bit, pulled and growled at the dead deer trying to help in a general way.

We left it in the woods to rot and feed the opossums, buzzards, and any other interested scavengers. Phoebe came back with me reluctantly but insisted on sitting by the fence closest to where we drug the carcass off to - so as to keep an eye as best she could over her conquest.

After coaxing her into finally coming in last night, she returned to her vigilance first thing this morning - staring off into the woods.

She knows exactly where we left her kill.

Oh the joys of dog ownership and living in the wild.