I have not been around so many people and been so underdressed in a long time. 

We slept overnight in the parking lot, which wasn’t as sucky as it sounds.

This morning, we were looking for a Tim Hortons for coffee, and Google just kept trying to take us to the Tim Hortons in the mall food court, so we ended up driving at random away from the mall.

At one point, I had to stop the bus in the middle of traffic because a small dog wearing a harness was trying to kill a jackrabbit in the middle of the road.  The dog, however, was not much bigger than the rabbit, and clearly pretty stupid about how to do it. 

The rabbit appeared to have been badly injured and was on its side trying to kick the dog and keep it away. 

I put on the flashers and set the brake,  the dog and rabbit were right in front of the bus, almost in the intersection.  I grabbed my six foot windshield brush and got out and swung it at the dog, and yelled at it to get away, and finally saw (presumably) its leashless owner coming toward what was happening.  When I swung the brush at the dog it backed off from the rabbit, but not before trying to get a final chomp in toward the rabbit ‘s belly, which was still intact. 

The rabbit stayed on its side on the hot asphalt, his golden yellow eyes were just terrified.  It couldn’t get up.  Blood was coming out of its nostrils.  It’s pupils dilated further when it saw me reach down to pull it from the road.

  He didn’t struggle when I grabbed his feet and laid him in the grass above the curb between the sidewalk and the road. Being in the grass seemed to instantly soothe him, but he was badly injured.  His belly fur was damp and matted where the stupid suburban dog had tried unsuccessfully to rip his belly open. 

I couldn’t tell why they were in the street, but my guess was there was no way the little harness dog had chased down the rabbit, but the rabbit had probably bolted and had gotten hit in the busy street.  I could see a them in the middle of traffic a few hundred feet ahead before I had stopped .  it looked like two animals were fighting in the road, and some other cars had gone around and avoided them, but there was no way for me to do so by the time we pulled closer. They were directly in front of the bus, and when I stopped, it had presented the dog with cover to continue his attack without vehicles swerving around his attempts to grab the rabbit.

I couldn’t leave the rabbit in the road.

I couldn’t help him to recover- that seemed impossible. He could barely kick and just seemed to be spasming.

And the stupid dog might run back once I leave and keep tormenting the helpless thing. His owner appeared hapless at best.

I wrung his neck quickly.

He stopped twitching and laid still. His eyes looked calm.

I got back in the bus.

I washed my hands and then kept driving.