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I encouraged her to chase the squirrells thinking that she would never catch up to them.
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A memory jog! I did encourage Pip to chase pigeons last fall when about 3 dozen were hanging out, daily, under my bird feeder. He also had to stop and come to me, when told to do so. I didn't allow him to catch any and it only took about 3 trys for him to catch on.
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And I really don't want to discourage his instinctual drive to chase ... that drive could make him a good Flyball dog if Agility doesn't work for him. My major upset was at having to make the "final decision" with the dying birds...putting them out of their misery or letting them just quit breathing on their own. Maybe I should have let Charlie finish what he started so I didn't have to decide?
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I that case, I hope I would be able to find it in myself to put the animal out of it's misery. Like you, I don't have the stomach for it, but I think I would feel worse allowing it to suffer...
Is Charlie a vicious shaker of his toys? I've always heard the shaking in play is practice for killing of prey. Maybe that's not true, but the theory makes sense to me. Pip is a very aggressive shaker of his toys.