Rabbitus victorius recurret

OPINION: The Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace to his pals), who famously said, as I am sure I don't need to remind you, "naturam furca expellas, tamen usque recurret", which translates roughly as "you can turf nature out with a pitchfork but from all sides it will come running back", would have enjoyed this story, writes Joe Bennett this week.

The authorities may not. Indeed, I fear it may upset them.

But I am prepared to run that risk. You can't make an omelette, as the old saying goes, without upsetting some chooks.

Here in Lyttelton the council has provided us with a recreation ground.

For years I've taken my dog there late at night. We go for the rabbits. They live beneath a ramshackle shed where the volunteer fire brigade stores its practice gear.

At night they emerge from under the shed – the rabbits, that is, rather than the volunteer fire brigade – to eat the council's grass.

Traditionally, when my dog and I arrive, the dog makes a dash for the rabbits and the rabbits make a dash for the shed.

Then there's an impasse, with the dog circling the shed, whining, and the rabbits under the shed, giggling.

Great fun for all concerned.

But the authorities intervened. They felt, I suspect, that the rabbits were not being properly respectful towards council property; that they were, in effect, cocking a snook. And if there's one thing authorities don't like it's having a snook cocked.

So they laid poison and put up notices to say they'd done so.

Either the poison was ineffective or the rabbits read the notices because rabbit numbers seemed, if anything to increase, and it soon became clear that the plan had failed. The authorities consoled themselves by erecting more notices. These notices banned dogs from the recreation ground. I don't know why.

Being a law-abiding creature I grudgingly obeyed the ban, except sometimes very late at night.

But the ban had about as much effect on other dog owners as the poison had on the rabbits.

There were dogs at the rec at all times of the day and eventually the authorities had no choice but to accept that they had lost this battle as well.

The notices came down.

And thus we returned, happily, to what Horace would have called the status quo ante.

But the authorities still had that nagging feeling that a snook, or even two, had been, and continued to be, cocked. So they established an ad hoc subcommittee, which decided, after many a meeting and many a packet of biscuits, to have another go at the rabbits. But this time, instead of poisoning them, they would simply exclude them.

They ordered the construction of a rabbit-proof fence around the recreation ground. My dog and I watched the fence go up. We watched the contractors dig a trench and bury chicken wire in it to prevent the rabbits from burrowing under the fence, and we watched the fence rise gradually to a height of a couple of feet, topped off with a wooden rail. It took a while and must have cost many thousands of dollars. But finally it was done.

And last night I drove the dog down to the rec to enjoy the sight of thwarted rabbits pushing their twitchy noses against the barrier and wondering how they were ever going to get their teeth back into that lush council grass. My lunatic dog leapt from the car, jumped the fence and sprinted across the turf in expectation of rabbits.

"Poor creature," I thought, "he is chasing ghosts." Wrong. He was chasing rabbits.

Half a dozen of them were squatting on the rugby pitch nibbling near the 22. I could only conclude that they had been trapped when the contractors completed the fence. Implausible, perhaps, but there, to the delight of my dog, they indisputably were.

When the rabbits spotted the dog they sprinted, as per the rules of the game, for the firemen's shed. But between it and them there now stood a rabbit-proof fence, into which they would charge blindly at full tilt, rebound perhaps a metre, and in a condition of half-concussed bewilderment they would be easy pickings for my dog.

With the dog at their heels they hurtled across the council turf. As they neared the fence, I braced for the coming cataclysm. Then boing boing boing, one after the other and without breaking stride, the rabbits leapt over the rabbit-proof fence and hid beneath the firemen's shed, giggling. The dog circled the shed whining, and we were back precisely where we began. Except now it wasn't just the rabbits that were giggling. It was me. And it was also the shade of dear old Horace, muttering "naturam furca expellas, tamen usque recurret".

» Joe Bennett is an English-born travel writer and columnist who lives in New Zealand with dogs. His columns are syndicated in newspapers throughout New Zealand.

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