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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
