Creature Feature

So we’ve now had two full nights without a nibble. No creature was stirring, not even a mouse. What a profound relief to be free (for now) of things that go bump in the night. The scratching was so loud at times it even upset the dog, who would come stand in the dark at my side of the bed for reassurance.

But yesterday, we were all well rested. The dog was up to his usual antics for this time of year, what with the butterfly shadows zigging and zagging around the yard on a sunny afternoon.

But when I called him to come in, he balked. He’d come just so close to the house, then acted as if he was guarding something in the grass. And as I stepped closer to see, he picked up his kill du jour: a rather large, long-tailed mouse (species unk).

Odd, I thought. He catches lots of moles, and the cat (rest her soul) used to catch the much quicker and more nocturnal and secretive mice. But I don’t think I’ve seen the dog catch a mouse before. It must have been sick. Uh-oh.

Do you suppose this was one or our poisoned evictees?

I lassoed the dog and drug him inside, and came back and bagged up the potentially warfarin-laden mouse carcass and put it out of harm’s way. And we will have to be vigilant over the next few days for a repeat of this scary consequence of our purging the dancing mice from over our not-quite-sleeping heads.

And while in the dog-zone, we discovered last week that the dog had tape worms. And looking back, I have to wonder if this helps explain Tsuga’s bizarre eating disorder that had him eating (and puking) walnut shells. Maybe this was just the wisdom of the species (along with eating grass) as a way to either 1) make himself throw up, or 2) cut/shred some tapes in the intestines from sharp edges of the odd stuff he’d eaten.