RUNNING A RABBIT STIFF

[Alabama John]

Thanks for the post BUDD, I enjoyed seeing and especially hearing your pack run!!! Good they could run on that rabbit that kept crossing the road so many times. Had great TEAM work.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

I've seen it several times on cottontails.Mostly in the warmer weather or early in the gun season when it was still fairly warm.This was always during a long,hard,pounding, almost check free run of an hour or more.
As someone mentioned I can about tell you when the dogs are about to catch the rabbit and have seen a hard pushed rabbit literally starting to lock-up as they go by and the dogs catch them with-in a couple of minutes.
I've never seen this on a hare even though I've had many 2 hour runs on them in the fall.Ray Simoneau,well known Large Pack judge from Vermont told me years ago about shooting a hare after a 3 hour hard race and the hare being totally stiff when he picked it up.
I've taken a rabbit away from the hounds with-in 30 seconds of it being shot or caught and you could hold the rabbit by his hind legs and hold him straight out like a pistol and he'd be hard as a chunk of wood.
I had a lot of veterinarians who I did service work for on their x-ray equipment and asked several of them their thoughts on this.They seemed to think that during this kind of hard,stress filled chase that the rabbit was exerting different kinds of chemicals in his body and when death came instantly there was a chemical reaction that caused almost instantaneous rigormortis ????????????

[bluegrass]

I watched it happen once at a field trial down in Frontier Michigan...it was a Progressive Pack champion cast and it was hands down the best pack of hounds I've ever watched...jumped about a minute into the cast they ran it for the full hour. We watched the rabbit, a full grown cottontail, dart behind a big rock...which had him actually facing us. Dogs got closer but the rabbit couldn't move...you could see him TRY but he wasn't able and the lead hound snatched him up...cast over. It was an awesome display of running though...those hounds were fantastic.

[rabbitatfarm]

The three or four times I've seen it, I think the rabbits stopped to rest, cramped up and the dogs caught them. At least that's the way it seems.

Larry

[Hubbard84]

I agree with the rigor mortis suggestion. We are aware that this occurs after death the reason behind it is the depletion of adenosine triphospate (ATP). This molecule is needed to break the actin and myosin cross bridges which occur during a muscular contaction. In the case of death rigor mortis occurs because breathing has ceased and there is no more oxygen available to make ATP. In the case of a rabbit after a hard chase, I think they run out of glucose after they have used up their muscular and liver storage units of glucose (glycogen), if their bodies can even break it down quick enough for them to use. Then they no longer have glucose available to enter glycolysis to make pyruvate (which enters the Krebs cycle and yields a total of 30 or 32 ATP). Thus they cannot relax their muscles and they stiffen up. That's just my theory. Why don't dogs do that then? They have more access to glucose, or can break it down quicker. Why does it happen in the heat? Not sure. Body temperature must have an effect on the cellular reactions. Thoughts?

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Ya dude,that's exactly what I was thinking--------.

[Alabama John]

Wonder if I ran a lot it would stiffen any part of me up!!!

[LR Patch]

Like me to ol to cut the mustard , I can't even unscrew the lid.lol