ANIMAL ANTICS-"The Pet Door" Free Funny Short Story

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I use humor to get through tough times. Sometimes dark humor, but humor none the less. I hope this true mouse tale makes you smile!

We recently put in a pet door so our two small dogs can go out into their fenced yard and come back inside at will. Marcus, our elderly tan terrier mix, has developed a urinary tract condition which makes it difficult for him to wait for someone to let him out when the urge strikes. A pet door seemed like the logical answer to avoid ‘accidents’ in the house. Dog problem solved!

THE NEW PET DOOR

Enter the cat. Freckles is the elderly orange and white feline who rules the roost around here. He was the first of the three rescue animals we adopted. Each dog, in turn, learned to respect him. He’s actually quite fond of Marcus and Mac, our small black Schipperke/Cairn terrier cross. Mac plays with the cat, Marcus mostly avoids him. When the cat feels paternal, he insists on washing their faces. When he’s in a mood, he steals their toys and blankets through intimidation. We all know Freckles is the boss.

We trained all three pets to use the new pet door, but Freckles does not like the plastic flap he must push up to get through the opening. He especially doesn’t like going outside when he can’t see what might be lurking nearby. He insists on a human opening the door.

MARCUS

BUT…(this is a big but) he has no problem running in through the pet door with a mouse in his jaws. Never a dead mouse, always a stunned mouse—which he brings inside triumphantly, yowling with his mouth full to announce his prize. He makes it as far as the kitchen without fail before he drops the little rodent, intending to play with it. The mouse promptly springs into action and disappears under the closest appliance with my husband and me in hot pursuit.

The first night this happened the mouse took refuge underneath the stove. We opened the slider to the deck a few inches, turned off the inside lights in that part of the house and locked our pets out of the area. My hope was the mouse would smell the night air and make his way along the counter base to the open door and outside to freedom.

I’m not sure that happened, but since we never smelled anything dead in the house, I choose to believe the little creature acted sensibly and left the building.

MAC

A week later, the next mouse Freckles brought inside ran into the pantry, and my husband almost caught it with a dishrag. Then the clever little creature ran between his legs back into the kitchen and hid under the refrigerator. We pulled out the refrigerator to no avail. He’d gone into the appliance’s nether regions.

Later that night, the cat turned up in the living room with a mouse in his jaws. We’d been watching television and hadn’t noticed if he came from the kitchen or through the pet door. When the cat dropped the rodent, my husband grabbed the stunned little pest by the tail and tossed him outside before slamming the pet door shut.

We agreed it was probably the same mouse, since he didn’t spring to his feet right away. We also agreed to buy some mousetraps in the morning, just in case.

FRECKLES

We awoke the next morning to a broken down refrigerator.

Time for mousetraps, and a cat curfew!

Thank you for reading my story. I welcome feedback.

~Sarah Raplee