Silver Tongue, Welder's Dogs: 

Still working on puting this story together, this is where I'm up to so far....

In the old days, skin flint broke starving mother's would send their hungry children out to do a man's share of work, for a honest days pay, while their dad's were away, off fighting in the war.  Some kids got up at the crack of dawn, daybreak to set or check their run of traps before school.  Sometimes they'd even wag school for the day and get some peace of mind catching rabbits or big ear hares for their mums to cook up a good hot pot, irish stew for their dinner.  This pastime was particularly popular during world war II.  Sadly like father, like son, the kids ended up trained killer's by the time the war was over, that had learnt out of survival, how to snap the rabbit's necks with their bare hands.

All the forest's animals feared for their lives and had to tread very carefully on the moist damp floor and not put a step wrong in case they got their head bitten off by the blacksmith farrier's silver tongue, welder's dogs.

When the farrier makes them they are all one off originals, that are works of art, each one different and unique handcrafted, fifty shades of grey heated up and forged from tempered steel with a signature series, blacksmith's identifying mark or stamp on them.  They are drag you over the hot coals, get you into alot of trouble, silver tongue, welder's dogs that when first made are bright red and glow in the dark.  Then there dipped into a barrel of cold water, so they can cool down in a hurry, spiting and spating, hissing like wild cats, bellowing like branded cattle, full of hot air, letting off steam as they cool their heels down.

All the small animals had to lookout for the hammer and tong, metal clang and the bang, sound of the serrated edge, bite of the square jawed, silver tongue, welder's dogs that they used to set to snare them in, hidden in amongst the autumn leaves camouflaged, pegged down with a pin to the ground ready to catch, kill and maim, stop them in them dead in their tracks, out cold.  Lifesaving frogs that would jump in feet first.and save the day seting them off and escaping with the potential danger going over their heads.

They didn't bark loud when they had a mouthful and were spring loaded with a steel foothold trigger plate that would set the gin traps off, snap shut and bite the animals leg or foot when they stepped on it..  They were always dying of thirst silver tongue, welder's dogs and were made with different size mouths to bite every animal alive,  4 inch for rabbits, 6 inch for foxes, wolves and badgers and some were even made with 12 inch man eating bear size, big foot mouths.

Sometime there was a magician rabbit that did a disappearing act escaping, leaving a lucky rabbits foot charm behind with a one foot in the grave, three legged race, trick with some of them eating their own foot off, surviving by the skin of their teeth with a amputation, escaping the bite of the jagged edge, sharp teeth that would lose their grip, foothold.

Sometimes the bigger sly and cunning foxes would gingerly manage to square dance with danger, shake a leg with their foot stuck in the trap and find the inner strength to pull the pin, stake out of the ground, walk away swiveling their ankle, dragging the chain behind them.

The younger kids knowing their mum's will wring their necks and go off the deep end if they don't bridge the gap and bring something home for dinner would get cold feet at the thought of killing them with their bare hands and would have a bag of potatoes, hessian sack race down to the river's edge instead, to drown the rabbits with the traps and all still attached, while the crow's and raven's, only a stones throw away, would circle above wanting a square meal of their own.

Squirrels that are not silly, don't get caught in the traps very often, see them seting the traps from their high vantage point, canopy of leaves and know what's going on, quickly sending the message along the bush telegraph, chain of tree's making long distance, emergency trunk calls, chitter chattering frantically down the line, sending a warning through the forest to the other squirrels.

Together, the squirrels devised a plan to avoid the traps, always staying alert and warning each other of danger. Their cleverness and unity protected them, and soon, the people who set the traps noticed that their efforts were futile catching the squirrels.  They learned that coexistence was better, and eventually, the traps disappeared to the back shed to gather cobwebs.

To add insult to injury, in the old days they were hell bent on catching and killing them, one way or another, so as well as the fake dog, traps they used real ferrets, animals that weaseled their way into their hearts, that they kept as pets.  They would dive right in with no fear and flush them out of their warren's, awash with all the rabbits, forcing them up to flood the surface, where the hunter's would be waiting with fishing rope, nets to catch them in.  They are ferocious, ferret's that have a carnivore meat eating, taste for the kill.  They are slim dusty's that have long slender, thin bodies that skinny dip in the dirt and never get stuck between a rock and a hard spot, tight squeeze chasing them out.   They like sticking their noses into other people's business, venturing into the unknown, dark of the whispering warren, wind tunnels, never getting lost in the underground maze following the leader, cuting to the chase, only stopping to catch their breath with a quick feed the kids and eat any helpless pink kittens that litter the way.

Every man and his dog wore one at the millner's mad hatter's tea party, washing and turning the pelts into felt to make bowl you over hats.  It used to be a knock your block off, mug's game where they didn't need to boil the copper kettle, washing the coney pelts in the bubbling billabongs naturally hot artesian water, once a week bath at Somerset in England.

It was a natural spring, full to the brim with epson mineral salts, 

All kit gloves were off fighting and squabbling over the pelts to sell and make rabbit lapin fur, felt hats out of with13 being the unlucky number of rabbits needed to make one felt bollar hat.

It was a steaming hot, shrink your head in smoko break, dunking skins with the blokes happy that they had caught more than they could poke a stick at, stirring the pot dunking the billycock skins floating on the surface with the blokes geting into a lot of hot water, bucking the system blewing with each other.  Slowly losing the plot tanning each other's hides, instead of the rabbits, fighting and brawling over the skins.  On another planet, off their faces with their heads spinning with mercury poisoning from processing the fur into felt.

The tea totalling blokes, men would stand around twiddling their thumbs, waiting with nothing to do like it was the Derby stakes race day meeting of clothes horse haberdasher's with a checkered past, one short of the full quid, mad as a two bob watch, blokes geting down and depressed, slowly going insane with the mercury used to process the felt, to make hats out of.

These days the consumption of wild rabbits and big ear hares has declined drastically after the tainting of a free feed in the 1950's with the silent killer disease myxomatosis virus that was introduced deliberately to make the meat inedible for the poor, common people to consume, forcing them to have to buy wealthy noble aristocratic gentry's expensive lamb and beef meat to eat.  This disease would cause the rabbits to get blind rotten drunk symptoms with the brain damage from the mosquito's that would transmit the debilitating germ.

These day's you'll find them lying around gathering dust, retired to the back shed, doghouse a little bit rusty and out of practice.  A patiently waiting team ready, willing and able turning into worst for wear, orange coloured dog's overnight, with their tongue's seizing up and geting corroded away with pock mark scabs.  The kids mum's telling them, not to worry they have a cast iron clad secret, old wive's tale knowledge, on giving them a new lease on life, so they don't squeak like mice, with them swearing that it's true, really works, to get the scum off.  They just need to brush up on their dog washing skills and give them a bath in vinegar, wash their mouth out with soap and soak them for a while, then they scrub up pretty good as working silver tongue, welder's dog's, grinning from ear to ear with nowhere to go, as they are now banned and illegal to to use in England but they are still a collector's item that people put on display and showoff hanging around. 

In the modern world, if their game, some braveheart british people still eat wild rabbits, big ear hares and grey squirrels, even though it makes most people feel a bit squirmish in the stomach, at the though and they know it's not to everyone's taste and liking but they still to this day continue to eat grey squirrels with the motto "eat a grey and save a red'" that helps protect the native red squirrel from extinction.

In the heart of the Australian bush lived a clever little rabbit named Rusty. Every morning, Rusty would see the strange metal objects appear near his favourite carrot patch – rabbit traps! But Rusty was not like the other rabbits; he was observant and wise.  We must be careful," Rusty whispered, his nose twitching. "These shiny things are not toys for playing with." He explained how the traps worked, demonstrating with a twig and a berry. The other rabbits listened, their floppy ears pricked up to attention.  Rusty and his friends lived happily ever after, reminding everyone that books are fun to read and can teach us valuable lessons, such as: carnivore animals only kill what they need to eat, out of survival when their starving and don't kill just for the sake of it.  Usually they kill the young that are slow, the injured and elderly that are weak which actually helps guarantee the survival of their species, with the remaining animals able to stay healthy and alive so that they don't end up old, injured and ruined animals that don't have the adrenalin gland white light, energy field lock between their brain and their mind broken.