It was a beautiful afternoon on the farm and Papa P. had just taken Ryan to his cousin Louis’ soccer game.  Coop, Maddie, Ben and I decided we’d take a walk through the woods.  It started off wonderfully.  The sun was shining but the autumn air kept things cool and crisp.  We saw a deer off in the distance and the leaves in full color change were still spectacular.  The dogs each had signs of tiring after running behind the four wheelers all morning and it showed in their calm demeanor.  Cooper was even able to stop and wrestle with Ben in the field a bit, something that doesn’t happen too often.

Then it happened.  I caught the initial scene on camera.

Ben started to sniff the ground a bit and then paused in his tracks.  He put his nose to the ground one more time and then dirt started flying everywhere.  With Cooper offering his super belly laugh, we watched in amazement as Ben dug an 18 inch hole in about 15 seconds and ruthlessly retrieved a mole.  With a quick crunch and a shake of his head, Ben had grabbed the mole from his hiding space and sent him on his way to rodent heaven by way of our canine friend’s stomach.

It was a difficult lesson for Cooper who stood confused asking, at one point if the mole was “sleeping.”  “Yes,” I said regretfully as I tried to avoid the life’s lesson that I’ll inevitably have to teach.  Within a minute though, Ben had swallowed the mole.  Cooper looked at me as if to say, “umm, Dad, the dog just swallowed that ‘sleeping’ mouse…is it still sleeping?”  Right there in the field I had the conversation with a two year old about life and death and the food chain.  It did exactly what I’d hoped it would do, confuse him so much that within minutes he was picking flowers to bring back to mom and grammy.  Mission accomplished.