NOTHING could have prepared me for the scene of complete, bloody carnage that greeted my eyes.

Fragments of what had once been life lay torn and twisted across the rabbit run, already attracting flies in the thin April sunshine.

Part of me went into shock-induced denial. This must be the remains of some other creature, perhaps jettisoned by that buzzard which is so often to be seen overhead.

Or maybe my eyes were deceiving me.

But no. For the fox came calling just after I left in the half-light that morning and made a meal of Dot.

Dot. She of the trusting nature and appealing habit of running up to me as soon as she heard the squeak of the latch that signalled my daily return.

Strange, isn't it, that just days after I wrote in this column how Mankind should accept the predation of domestic animals, Nature should decide to put my convictions to the test.

How haughtily I must have sounded when I wrote that pigeon-fanciers should philosophically accept the loss of a few birds. Now it's happened to me. I've been caught bang to rights.

Of course, the upset will diminish as the days and week go by. But Edward now cowers at the back of his hutch, traumatised by his sister's fate.

His cheeky spirit has been extinguished, that comical little character shrunk by two minutes of butchery.

Nature. Red in tooth and claw.

And eternally difficult to comprehend.