As any parent or guardian of young souls, human or canine knows, silence may be the precursor for disaster, so when after a lengthy and annoying barking fit the mutts suddenly turned silent, my 'disaster antenna' went up and I went to check on the suddenly very quiet mutts.
They had cornered a possum and Priscilla had it by its neck and with absolute concentration and a will, was killing it.
And that was the eerie part of the spectacle...the silence. For once the mutts were quiet, even they who were not involved in the act. Just a lot of heavy breathing.
As possums go this was not a very big one, more like an over sized rat, but all the same it was a kill and my usually docile and friendly Priscilla had turned into a killer.
She wanted to parade the kill but that was just a step too far, so I swept it up on a dustpan and threw it out in the jungle.
The mutts have all forgotten about the possum kill, but I must admit that I, the big boss man, look at Priscilla in a slightly different way. The utter ruthlessness of the kill has made me ponder.......who next?