Faithful hound

[skyring]

Our little black dog, a breed best described as a Skittish Terrier, has spent the past two days camped in front of the dishwasher. She can smell mouse, you see, and she's a ratter of amazing ferocity. Once a mouse or rat gets out in the open, it's history. So she's been waiting patiently for the mouse she can smell, and possibly hear, under the dishwasher to squeeze itself through a tiny little crack and leap into her mouth.

"Not going to happen, doglet!" I tell her, but she doesn't listen.

Claude the cat brings them in from outside, where they breed in the honeysucle and live off the compost pile and whatever birdseed gets spilt on the ground. (quite a lot if a cockatoo decides to ravish my bird feeder). Claude is quite healed up now and has quit limping even for effect. But he still delights in catching mice and the occasional small rat. He brings them in through the cat flap, drops them on the kitchen floor and plays chase with them.

And every now and then one gets away from him, dives under the fridge or through the gap beside the oven and is safe. The cupboards have little cut outs for pipes and cables, and there's enough room for a mouse to squeeze through, once they get into the cupboards.

So the dog has been waiting patiently for a mouse to squeeze through that impossibly narrow crack beside the dishwasher. Futile.

This afternoon I put a bowl in and as I pulled down the door, a gap opened up beneath, a mouse sprang out and almost leapt into the Jaws of Death. So it all paid off for the dog!

And now she's camped in front of the dishwasher again. Maybe there's another one, maybe she can still smell the old one, maybe she's just hoping....

Comments

I bet she thinks the dishwasher is a mouse dispenser now.

[gorydetails.livejournal.com]

Or else she and the cat have an arrangement - cat supplies mice, dog supplies... protection?

[resqgeek]

This last winter we discovered that we were adopted by a family of mice. In addition to warm, dry shelter, we apparantly have an abundant food source. Since we don't have a mouser to catch the mice for us, we bought a trap, and started catching them ourselves. The first several we took outside and released. However, we were worried that they might find their way back to the plentiful food, so when we discovered that a friend of ours has pet snakes, we started taking our mice to them. Now we can get rid of our mice and our friend doesn't need to buy mice to feed the snakes.

[rubyjules424.livejournal.com]

My Corgi caught a mouse last fall. I think it surprised him more than it did me! :) But then I had to take it outside to release it, because the dog was in such shock that he dropped it. The mouse was stunned and shocked, but still among the living.

Re: I bet she thinks the dishwasher is a mouse dispenser now.

[skyring.livejournal.com]

Mouse dispenser sounds about right. The cat and the dog have a mutual pact of hostility, and nothing delights Coomie than to steal one of Claude's mice and crunch it up so it can no longer be played with. She then buries it in her blanket for later delight.

Every now and then we gingerly shake out her blanket and all sorts of things come tumbling out. Bones, reserves of dry dog food, deceased lizards, bacon rinds....

Then we wash the blanket.

You might be surprised what mice can fit through...

[marina-wolf.livejournal.com]

given the right motivation.

Former MIL once chased one under a closed door that was weatherstripped on the bottom.

Your dog's optimism is on par with Boudreaux's (the one who chases birds out of our airspace).

:D

Re: You might be surprised what mice can fit through...

[skyring.livejournal.com]

She lives to crunch up mice. My daughter used to keep pet mice and if she brought one into the kitchen, our little dog would trot over to her food bowl.

It was lucky that the two sets of pets never got together, though there were a few unfortunate incidents with Claude the cat.