To look at them you wouldn’t think butter would melt in their mouths. They’re so pretty, so cuddly, so loving.

You’d never guess that lion hearts nest inside their curly chests.

Many’s the time I’ve come home to find dead chickens, birds or ducks in the yard. Or occasionally woken up to the unpleasant task of burying a wallaby or possum.

I’m not proud to say that the carnage count includes rats, mice, a goose and even a bandicoot.

While we try to keep our yard critter safe (poodles in – critters out) we sometimes fail. And you can be sure the poodles are there to rub that failure in our faces every time.

Up till recently, all bodies retrieved were intact. No blood, less evidence.

At least, I’d tell myself, they’re neat killers – one grab around the neck, a good shake and its curtains for the critter who had the misfortune to step inside our yard. No mess.

Very befitting a poodle.

Just the thing to be grateful for: intact corpses.

Except for one memorable occasion when I came home with a friend to find Romeo parading round the yard with a duck head in his mouth. The rest of the duck was still intact though… just minus the head…

Way to impress visitors.

So, you can imagine how disgusting it was to wake up on Sunday morning and find what looked, at first appearance, to be an intact dead pademelon, only to find its guts lying next to it. Outside its body. In a neat little bundle. Barely a mark on it. Like someone had carefully opened a birthday present.

Yup.

Disgusting.

Then, this morning, I woke up to find a single feather and some guts on the footpath.