Cycle of life? Food chain?

A friend blogged recently about a phobia she has and today my son had to face the thing she fears. The timing is so odd, but here's what happened.

My son dog-sits for his grandfather's neighbors when they go out of town. It's a good situation for him...a safe neighborhood, his grandfather next door in case anything happens, and two very active dogs for company. One dog is a terrier and the other is a mutt. The back door has a doggy door built-in and the yard has an electronic fence to keep the dogs from running away. It's a perfect set-up. But life is not perfect and things happen.

This afternoon my son let the dogs out to run a little and do their business. The terrier came back in before the other dog and my son heard an unusual squeal coming from the kitchen. He went to investigate and found the terrier had a baby squirrel in her mouth. He tried to get the dog to release the little thing, but it refused. My son went to get help from his grandfather, but when they returned it was too late. The squirrel was dead...um, a little more than just dead, but I won't go into details. My son is having a hard time forgiving the dog.

I'm trying to help him understand that the dog didn't do anything wrong and that a squirrel--even a small one--ending up this way is...well...normal. It's part of nature. If he had grown up on a farm the way my parents did he would understand that--hopefully I've helped him to understand that now. My parents both grew up watching their parents kill chickens for dinner. My dad had stories of pigs being slaughtered in the fall so the meat could be smoked or salted for the winter. My dad also went fishing and hunting--mostly quail and rabbits. I remember helping him clean fish, pluck feathers, and I was the only kid in the 2nd grade with a real rabbit's foot (when my grandma found it she threw it away--lol).

I wish the dog had not caught that squirrel today. But he was only doing what his instincts told him he should do...try to eat something lower than himself in the food chain. My son did the same thing when he ate dinner tonight. He did it in a more civilized, less grisly way, but the end result was essentially the same.