Last Animal Story, I Promise!

[Peg Herring]

This one might have you thinking that I've deluded myself into believing I'm a former President of the United States, but not so. It happened to me.

I'm on my daily walk in the woods. As I follow the path, ahead I see a rabbit, sitting maybe twenty feet ahead of me. This is unusual, since rabbits are, well, rabbity. They tend to startle and run at the first sign of an intruder. This rabbit was sitting very still, in plain sight.

As I approached him, the rabbit took off, as I expected him to do. But instead of heading into the trees, he ran about ten feet up the path, fell sideways, and rolled like a loose tire into the leaves. He got up, shook his head, and ran again, this time in a different direction. Again he fell after only a few feet, rolled, took a few sideways steps like a drunk, and tried to run again. This time he came directly at me. He fell and rolled again, got up and ran past me. I turned to see him fall and roll yet again, get up, and come back in my direction. By now I was a bit apprehensive. This rabbit was definitely not well.

The rabbit passed me again, stopped, turned, and ran back toward me, actually running over my foot as it passed a second time. It fell, turned, and ran off into the woods at full speed. It got going pretty well but didn't see a tree in its path and went head-on into the trunk. Recovering somewhat, it ran, rolled, and ran again, this time into the woods where I lost sight of it.

I have since learned that wild rabbits can get a brain disease that causes them to act this way. At the time it was one of those Alice-in-Wonderland experiences where you think, "Will I wake up soon, or have I lost it entirely and become a woods-bound wacko?"