We live in the woods. We have critters. Enough chipmunks and mice outside to entertain Purrl. Fortunately for him, he never had a chipmunk fasten itself flat across his face, velcroed on by twenty tiny claws, and take him for a merry run. That happened to a cat of Patti’s. Anyway.
We live in the woods. We have mice in the house. We know the cats actually brought some, back when we still let them use the cat door, and dropped them off for future amusement. But, there are enough cracks in our old house and mice hate wintering outside enough that an even larger population brought themselves in.
Poppy II was a terrier, but not into rodent vermin. He once took on a contractor’s German Sheppard and sent it down the street, tail between his legs. He considered that vermin. Handle your own mice. So we did. We kept the mouse traps primed and in those mousie runways, and we probably kept even. However, we cleaned mouse souvenirs from drawers often enough to know we weren’t ahead.
When Angus arrived he was interested in the mouse traffic, but otherwise clueless. Like running after a ball. He’d pick it up and then look around for an idea of the next move. Fiona sized up the situation the first time a mouse crossed her path. She barked. She pointed. She steered. She flushed. Angus watched. Finally Fiona kicked his butt. Listen, fool. We’re terriers. We have a job. I’m going to flush that sucker from behind the dog food can one more time and you’re going to snap its neck. Got it? Don’t make me do everything!
Fiona would have preferred the neck snapping job herself, but she let Angie go into action when she had the varmit in the open. It was to bolster his ego. You could read it in every muscle, tail up, front quarters down, keeping that mouse trapped right in the middle of the floor while she urged Angus to do it now! Then she’d turn to him, standing there with his mouth in a little O before, pthooi, he spit the corpse on the floor. Well, she’d say, I got another one.
I rest my case. Terriers are extremely smart. Especially female terriers!!
ReplyDeleteGood for them...little exterminators that they are.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there was the day all the weavers got an education in the live Nature show at the Ewe Tree! A very industrious cat dropped an uninjured chipmonk at the door of the studio and watched in catly amusement as it raced around the room over everyones feet until Angus, hot it it's tail, caught up with it, grabbed it and snapped its neck. Dropped it and sauntered off. You know the rule, you see the dead thing, you clean it up. Angus was never on the clean up detail. That job was for the humans.
ReplyDeleteTerriers! :) You should see what happens when an Old English Sheepdog spots vermin! Absolutely nothing. The key words here is 'spots'!
ReplyDelete