If it makes you feel better, my dog Tatum assassinated a muskrat about 2 months ago. She was running around the yard with it in her mouth while chewing on it, and I eventually got her to let it go by yelling, "leave it!" The point of the story is that Tatum is healthy and never even got sick or anything like that. And oh yea, Shawnee picked up a dead bird in her mouth once too and started running around with it. She too never got sick. And finally, my first dog named Jackson would eat dead birds routinely and never get sick.