Wellington and the Rabbits

I have an English friend named Mark; well we all know him as Stix now, but that's hardly his given name. He was once a jockey back in the U.K, and even rode in the greatest steeplechase race of all time, The English Grand National. As a jockey, there were only three spaces where his name could go on the back of his britches, so naturally, the name "Mark" couldn't fit. Seeing as he was so skinny, STX was what he put down. STX eventually turned into Stix and the name stuck.

Being English, Stix has a habit of naming his pets after famous personages of the Empire. He has a horse named Harris, after the Harris Bomber, a famed RAF pilot who almost singlehandedly leveled the German advance. He has a barn cat that he named Windsor, after the Duke. And finally, he has a black lab named Wellington. After the famous General who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Welly for short.

Welly and Stix are never apart from each other. They sleep in the same bed, they go to the Tavern together, and when Stix exercises the horses in the morning, Welly always tags along. Welly is a loving and loyal dog, whose affectionate lab behavior knows no bounds. However, when duck hunting season comes around he snaps into action and retrieves every bird that hits the water.

That hunting instinct sometimes overlaps the hunting season, however. A stray squirrel or groundhog that ventures to close to Welly's powerful jaws would have little hope of surviving. Stix knows this, and so, when he woke up one morning to find his dog playing with the carcass of a dead flop-eared bunny, he could only assume the worst.
You see, an Irish family lives next door to Stix. The father and mother and two little girls about six or seven. The father was once a jockey too (as most are in my town) and he had known Stix from their days on the track, back across the water. The two little girls were very fond of Stix, and even fonder of Welly. They would crawl on him and pull his ears, while he patiently obliged, happily wagging his tail.

In their back yard, the family has a cage with two flop-eared bunnies; one for each girl.

Stix rushed downstairs hoping that the children hadn't seen what his dog had done to their pet. Welly, trotted up to Stix, proudly displaying his prize. Peering around the corner, to see if his neighbors were awake yet, Stix picked up the carcass and took it upstairs to the sink. He washed the blood out of the fur, and fluffed the hair around the wound, trying to make the bunny as fresh as possible. All the time he wondered how on earth Welly had managed to get past the tall picket fence dividing the properties and into the rabbit cage. But Welly could be quite resourceful when the promise of fresh meat was involved. So he didn't think much of it.

Once the dead bunny was dried, and Stix was satisfied that it would take a forensic detective to figure out that Welly was the culprit, he snuck next door. Carefully opening the cage, he placed the rabbit in its spot, matting the straw around it as though it had died peacefully in its sleep.

Later that day, Stix leaned over the fence to say hello to his neighbor.
"I say, old son, hows the misus treating you?"

The Irishman replied, "Ay fair enough, me lad. Got a touch of the cold. But shell come round."

Stix glanced over at the cage and as innocently as possible said, "I haven't seen the two flop-eards about lately. The girls still feeding them I hope?"

With that the Irishman straightened and a distressed look came across his face.

"Well, funny that. Can you believe what this old world is coming to? Saints preserve us! Some sick fuck dug up me rabbit I just buried yesterday and put him right back in the cage this mornin!"