This happened a week or so ago.
Not sure if it’s unique but I’ve never heard of it before.
Was out with the dogs, and I thought phoebe had caught a rabbit. It was making a lot of noise, squealing. Unfortunately when she catches something she wont let you get near her and normally she kills things pretty quick by shaking them and breaking their necks.
Never actually draws blood.
Well this thing kept squealing so I went to see what was going on.
My first thought was : ‘she’s caught a raccoon’.
Which makes no sense. But in my defence I’d seen exactly as many live raccoons in the uk as I’d seen live badgers.
Yep she’d only gone and caught a live badger.
This was in broad daylight.
And badgers are famously nocturnal.
When I got there they were in a bit of a standoff.
She’d put it down in order to rearrange it for eating and it didn’t want to be eaten.
I took a couple steps towards it and it spun and hissed at me. So I don’t think it was fatally hurt.
I think it was just in shock. I went back to the same place a few days later and there was no sign and I couldn’t smell anything dead
But yeah, in over 40 years of owning dogs and talking to dog owners I have never heard of a dog catching and carrying around a live badger. Until now !
Ball lightning is amazing stuff. Don’t think anyone’s ever managed to properly explain it.