Eeek!
As I was attempting to take my afternoon nap, I was awakened by a persistent scratching noise. The two main suspects, Sam and Murphy, were sound asleep. That meant we had an uninvited house guest ... down the hallway ... in the linen closet. As I opened the door the scratching grew more intense then stopped. As I looked around, I move the dog food bin and the sound returned more frantic than ever.
Yup, a white-footed field mouse had gotten into the nearly empty bin and could neither scale the slick sides nor hurdle the necessary height to escape. What to do without Suzy? Anything violent inside the bin was out of the question as that would require a subsequent manual cleansing of the blood and guts.
Well, Sam has always been something of a mouser herself. But a live mouse in her food was just too weird to handle. So, with Sam and Murphy in tow, I took the bin onto the deck and tipped it over. The mouse came out, took one look at the two huge beasts with their noses in its face, and jumped off the deck, a free fall of some 12 feet.
Before the mouse was on the ground, the dogs were half way down the steps in hot pursuit. The mouse hid under the landing and moved from one side to the other, depending on which dog was closer at the moment. Soon, with the nose of both dogs under the steps simultaneously, the mouse dashed between them and into the woods, unseen by either.
When we returned from town an hour, or so, later with a fresh stock of dog food, the first thing Sam and Murphy did was check out the space under the landing.
Sorry, guys, that mouse is loooong gone, maybe even dead ... from a coronary.
Yup, a white-footed field mouse had gotten into the nearly empty bin and could neither scale the slick sides nor hurdle the necessary height to escape. What to do without Suzy? Anything violent inside the bin was out of the question as that would require a subsequent manual cleansing of the blood and guts.
Well, Sam has always been something of a mouser herself. But a live mouse in her food was just too weird to handle. So, with Sam and Murphy in tow, I took the bin onto the deck and tipped it over. The mouse came out, took one look at the two huge beasts with their noses in its face, and jumped off the deck, a free fall of some 12 feet.
Before the mouse was on the ground, the dogs were half way down the steps in hot pursuit. The mouse hid under the landing and moved from one side to the other, depending on which dog was closer at the moment. Soon, with the nose of both dogs under the steps simultaneously, the mouse dashed between them and into the woods, unseen by either.
When we returned from town an hour, or so, later with a fresh stock of dog food, the first thing Sam and Murphy did was check out the space under the landing.
Sorry, guys, that mouse is loooong gone, maybe even dead ... from a coronary.
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