He had just left the spot where he had dug the little hole in the meadow, when, all at once, he heard a dog barking.
“Ha! I wonder if that is Don or a hunter’s dog,” thought Flop Ear. He looked quickly over his shoulder, and he saw a dog running toward him. It was neither Don nor a hunter’s dog, but a strange one.
“Get out of this field!” barked the dog. “Run away or I’ll bite you!” and he spoke very crossly.
“My! You are not as nice and polite as Don was when he let me get the cabbage,” thought Flop Ear as he bounded away. “I’m not hurting your field. I only dug a little hole in it, and ate some hay, and there is a whole mountain of it left.” Flop Ear did not stop to say this to the barking dog, but spoke as he ran on, for the dog was coming after him very fast indeed.
“Bow wow! Bow wow!” barked the dog. “I’ll catch you, rabbit!”
“Oh, ho! No, you won’t!” answered Flop Ear. “You can’t catch me!”
Rabbits can run and hop very fast you know, but of course Flop Ear was only a little fellow, not fully grown, and the dog was a big chap. So the rabbit, looking back, saw that the dog was getting nearer and nearer.
“I must fool him,” said Flop Ear to himself. “I must run in the woods where he can not see me. Then he can only follow me by smelling, and when I get a chance I’ll cross some water, and then the dog can’t even smell my steps.”
When dogs can not see rabbits, or other animals they are chasing, they have to go by smell. They put their nose to the ground and sniff very hard, and a dog’s nose is so good for smelling that he can tell just which way a rabbit went, that is if it is not too long after the rabbit has passed by. Rabbits, and other animals when they step on the ground, leave there a sort of smell, called a scent, just as if you rubbed onion on a dish. Though you did not see the onion rubbed on the dish, if you smelled the dish, even in the dark, you would know the onion had been there.
That’s the way it is when a dog chases a rabbit. He smells the tracks on the ground when he can not see the bunny running along.