Give a dog a rabbit, he eats for one meal ...

That dog don't hunt.

It helps to say that with a southern accent.

Did you ever want to teach your hunting-breed dog to, well, hunt?

There's a place in Carlisle, Pa., that will do just that. Here's the story from Robbie Brown with the New York Times.

We were at the Fun Field Trial here, a hunting training program held in the spring for dogs that have never hunted but whose breeds were created to do so. Part doggie boot camp, part nature-versus-nurture science experiment and part outdoorsman’s Westminster Dog Show, the trial was founded last year by two local basset hound clubs to test the hunting instincts of ordinary house dogs.

It's for bassets, beagles, dachshunds and petit basset griffon vendeens, dogs bred centuries ago to help hunters get fast prey.

Some say domesticated pooches have lost the ability to hunt.

Alexandra Horowitz, a Barnard College dog behavior expert, said dogs may not go to their natural ways if they are allowed to hunt.

“People think if we put dogs in the right environment, they’ll just go back to their wild ways,” she said. “It really just depends on the breed and the individual dog.”

Carry on, all you hunters

It's deer hunting season here in New York.

And for the first time in I don't know how long — now that I live in the City of Poughkeepsie — I can go outside with Kate for her necessities, and she doesn't immediately turn tail and run back inside when there is the sound of a shotgun.

Heck, it's a relief for me too, not having to wear orange. A totally unflattering color.

Quick story.

A friend of mine was weekending up in Shekomeko and was a jogger. She asked a couple of locals if she would be OK running during hunting season while wearing an electric lime green top.

Absolutely not, the locals said. You must wear hunter's orange.

The electric lime green top was color that, under no circumstances, did not exist in nature.

The concept that a hunter would not recognize that fact and blast away was hilarious to me.

My friend, however, chose to wear orange.