Tuesday, July 2, 2013

SQUIRREL!


HEY EVERYBODY! KARI FROM WESTERN WASHINGTON IS LOOKING TO SHARE EXPENSES TO THE CLINIC!

ALSO!!! BECKY BEAN MIGHT NEED A HORSE HAULED TO MONTANA FROM SOUTHERN CA. ANYBODY?

LET ME KNOW!






It was a typical day at the house.

I had already been out with the sunrise, and had worked the dogs and the horses by 8 a.m.
Don't get me wrong, I am not all that ambitious, it's just that between the drought and the fires, early morning is the only time to get anything done outside.

Susy was puttering around the house, muttering to herself as she worked her way through our old dusty place. She's been a friend for 30 plus years, and lucky for me, is a home health aid too. When it came time for me to admit I couldn't keep up with the house and Jim 24/7, at least in a way that didn't leave our place looking like the oldest trailer in the junkiest trailer park in town, she was willing to take us on.

This leaves me with enough energy to ride, work dogs and write. In other words, a state that keeps me sane and using my fading reserves for what's important. Jim is happier too, he trusts our old friend, so is comfortable with her in the house. He enjoys her company and my healthier mind set.

At the same time, she brings her lab, Mandy, with her. When I'm babysitting the granddog, Dobby, it puts us at six dogs running around the house. I love it, but after a bit, Jim and Susie start looking a little bug-eyed.

Anyway, for the moment, all was peaceful at the house. I was at my computer, the dogs were sprawled out on whichever of the eight dog beds scattered around the house that appealed to them. Jim was following Susie around, offering her his never ending helpful input, and I was able to sink into my writing. I disappeared into a land of creekside trails and mystery, at least until the crazed cacophony of the whole pack in full song came crashing through.

Now what? Freaking dogs. I heard a panicked shrieking that didn't fit in with the rest of the choir--  like the old lady in church who thinks she sings way better than she actually does--a high pitched scream ending with a mad chatter.

It was a squirrel. Wait a minute, the dogs were all in the house. The squirrel singing soprano seemed only inches away. I hit save, put down the computer and looked around the corner. Except for the elderly and deaf Snocone and Dinah, who were still snoozing, the dogs were climbing over each other in a total frenzy. The fricking squirrel was in the house.

"What the hell is going on?" Susie hollered over the din.

"What?" Jim asked. "I can't hear you, the dogs are barking."

"There's a squirrel behind the book case." I yelled.

"What?" Jim yelled a little louder.

"You have a stinking squirrel?" Susie didn't look surprised, just exasperated.

"What?"

"JANET HAS A SQUIRREL!" she hollered a Jim

"No I don't have a squirrel! It came from outside!"

"What? Did you say squirrel?"

"A SQUIRREL!"

 All our shouting made the dogs even more excited, their barking, snarling and bellowing was reaching new heights and the two with tails wagged them hard enough to stir up a breeze. Dinah stuck her head out from under her chair and Snocone mumbled in her sleep.

Susie waded through the pack and looked in the space behind between the bookcase and the wall.
"It's back here!" she called.

Ya think? I grabbed a broom and a cat carrier and headed on over. The dogs crawled all over Susie, trying to get at the shrieking critter. Jim came up behind me with a poker.

"What's the poker for?"

"Damn squirrel probably has rabies," he muttered. "Maybe plague, or hantavirus. He might have fleas!"

"And you wonder why we don't have a gun in the house," I said.

"What?"

"PUT DOWN THE POKER!" I yelled.

I kicked back the dogs and peeked at our intruder. He looked like he was wishing he had rethought his morning. I gave Susie the broom and tried to position the cat crate in an appealing, this will take you out of hell, kind of way.

She eased the broom down the wall. As soon as the squirrel felt the bristles, he spun around, shot up the broom, across Susie's arm, hit the wall and pushed off over the dogs heads.
It was Rocket J. Squirrel doing Mission Impossible.
Susie screeched and started cussing.
He raced around the house, the pack in hot pursuit, Susie ran behind them, waving her broom in the air, I followed with the carrier and Jim came behind me, poker at the ready.

Rocket J. buried himself in the closet. The dogs crowded in, shoes and office supplies began flying out. Susie whacked at the dogs, the squirrel came out over their backs and was gone. Dinah came halfway out from under her chair, her little nose quivering.

"Wait a minute," I said. "We are not going to catch that frigging squirrel, and Jim's right, we do have plague, hantavirus and rabies going around this year."

"Don't forget the fleas," he said. "If I had my gun I could take care of that squirrel."

"No guns," I said.

"What?"

"NO GUNS!"

"Quit yelling at me!"

I kicked out every dog that wasn't Charlie or Dinah -- my long retired vermin control team. Charlie is still capable, but Dinah at 14, is deaf as a post and just about blind. Gotta work with what you've got though.

After a minute or two, Dinah decided the rest of the dogs weren't coming back and she emerged from her den. Charlie bounced around her, his stub tail was wagging like crazy. Dinah is gray and heavy with age, she's looks a lot like a footstool, but she stood square on her arthritic little legs and tested the air with her nose, then tasted it, just like the old days. She snuffled around until she found the squirrel hiding under the fish tank stand, then she left Charlie on guard and began to backtrack the trail

She followed her nose, lifting her head and carefully tasting the air every time she hit a spot where Rocket J. was either airborne or running across my counters. She ended up under the dining room table, snuffling and snorting the floor and trotting a small circle. Satisfied, she lay down and looked over to Charlie, ears on the alert and an excited glow in her cloudy eyes.

"Susie?"

"What?" Jim asked.

"Not you, Susie!"

"What?" she asked.

"You might want to step out of the way, this might be gross."

Susie backed down the hall and covered her eyes.

Charlie was trotting back and forth in front of the fish tank, his excited whine told me the squirrel was still holed up.

I opened the screen door and a few more windows, just to give the poor varmint a fair shot and said,"Get the mousie (code word for kill anything moving), Charlie!"

He went nuts. Barking whining, scratching, he tried his best to jam himself under the fish tank.

Rocket J. trilled back, then fell to cussing him as only a squirrel can.

Right when I thought I'd have to get the broom and help my dog, the squirrel came blasting out and made a run for it.

Charlie was right on his heels, his little yelps rolling steady as he called the chase, the dogs locked outside started barking and howling. Jim was running around the house, waving the poker and yelling,"Where is it? Where is it?" Man, my neighbors must just love us.

The squirrel ran over the couch, jumped to a bench against the wall and tried to scramble to the ceiling. Charlie had his nose on Rocket J's tail and sent couch cushions flying, knocked a stack of books off the bench and scrabbled some long scratched in the paint as he tried to follow up to the ceiling.

The squirrel hit the floor running, shot through the kitchen and landed in the water bowl. Water splashed across the tile and Charlies feet shot out from under him as he came around the corner. His legs spun like a paddle wheel until he was up and running again, but his wavery little howl never skipped a beat. The squirrel tore into the family room and under the dining room table. There lay Dinah, her gray head on her paws and an intent shine behind her clouded eyes.

SNAP!!! She had him, and one hard shake spelled out the end of Rocket J. Squirrel.

She paraded around with her prize for a bit, just wiggling with joy. Charlie jumped around her pulling at the squirrels fuzzy tail, but not hard enough to take it from her.

"How did she know where to go?" Susie asked.

"What?" Jim  said.

"HOW DID SHE...oh never mind," she said.

"When Dinah and Charlie used to hunt rabbit, ground squirrels, prairie dogs and the like, they would spend a couple days just chasing them. Eventually, Dinah would figure out where they holed up when they went to ground and lay there waiting. Once the critter appeared Charlie would run it. Most of the time the animal of the day ran a big circle and back to it's hole. Dinah would be waiting, and well, you saw the result.
   "I'm guessing the open window over the table is where the squirrel came in."

Dinah dropped Rocket J. at my feet and I gave both dogs a cookie, the same trade we had made hundreds of times over the years.

"Good dogs!" I told them. They grinned back.

"What?" Jim asked.

"PUT DOWN THE POKER!!"





29 comments:

  1. Oh, my. I've had birds and gopher snakes (babies) get into the house when I'm not quick enough closing the slider on the patio and the house is dark (and inviting) but never a squirrel. My Cor-weenie is a terror on the hunt, fearless and thorough. His mother, the Corgi, would be like your Dinah. Easier to let the youngsters (or "youngsters at heart") do all the hard work. All things come to those who wait. Excellent recounting. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG...Thanks for the belly laugh! Glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee. ROF

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you Mugs! I get so excited when you have a new post, and this one was sooo funny! Terrific way to start the day...laughing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hilarious!!! I'm with Anonymous...I love the mornings when I come to my computer and wee that you have a new post. My favorite way to start the day!

    ReplyDelete
  5. er...um...that would be "see" not "wee". Obviously it is going to be one of those days.

    I forgot to mention that I can totally relate to the 8 dog beds. Around our house we have a "dogstacle course"

    ReplyDelete
  6. *because I'm too lazy to log in the blogger account, just trust that I wrote this*

    I can relate to the critters in the house..

    http://hunterintraining.blogspot.com/2008/08/theres-possum-on-my-pillow.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL!!! omg, that is so funny! PUT DOWN THE POKER!! Thank you for sharing, I so needed that laugh!

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the best laugh of the month! (well ok, it is only the second, but that was a corker!!!) I miss having dogs just for this reason, my cats would just be boring and stare it down. My husband has a blowgun and darted a chipmunk in the house when the cats would not take care of it. Quieter than the gun, neater than a poker LOL

    ReplyDelete
  9. Growing up I had a Jack Russell and a red heeler who made quite the hunting team. The jack kept our barns pretty varmit free alone, but anything bigger and the heeler stepped in to help. Anything that went to ground the jack would go in and either bolt it or drag it out. The heeler waited outside the hole for the kill.

    Now days I still have a jack patrolling my yard. We have no rabbit problems in the garden, she dug out the only mole that dared to burrow in our yard, and the squirrels seem smart enough to stick to the trees. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. The day the squirrel went berserk,
    In the First Self-Righteous Church
    in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula.
    It was a fight for survival,
    that broke out in revival.
    They were jumpin pews and shouting Hallelujah!

    ReplyDelete
  11. *Note to self - must get Jack Russell someday.*

    Dinah is awesome.

    I laughed so hard at "our neighbors must love us" cause I'm pretty sure our neighbors feel the same way about us. :) Pure and utter chaos at our house sometimes too.

    Jim is a peach.

    ReplyDelete
  12. My two heelers were like that as well. They worked together and often didn't eat their kibble because of full bellies from what they caught. The best was watching them try to ditch the dingbat border collie and pitbull so that they could go hunt. Those other two totally messed up their groove.
    I could picture the whole scene in my head and was laughing out loud. Thanks Mugs

    ReplyDelete
  13. I so love your stories. I had a good laugh, now time to get back to work. I'm looking forward to hearing about the clinic at the ranch. If you do it again in the future I hope to be able to bring Rose. Unfortunately still breastfeeding JR at the moment. Thanks again for the laugh!
    -Renee
    Adventures In Colt Starting

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thank you for the belly laugh!

    ReplyDelete
  15. So funny! Here you were just minding your own business, probably thinking about how to generate some cliff-hanging tension and SQUIRREL!!!!
    Did you see "Up" the movie? You should stream it if you haven't. Yeah, its a cartoon. Sort of.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'd have been scared the dogs could get rabies though. Would that be possible from them biting the squirrel or does it have to be the other way around? We don't have rabies here so I don't know much about it.
    Oh and I get hours of entertainment watching the squirrels stealing bird food from the tree just outside my back door which is always open if it is warm, I never thought about one coming in the house. Hopefully my feisty cat is a good deterrent!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Up is one of my favorite movies.

    Anon - My dogs have had rabies shots their entire lives. I worry more about US getting the plague or hantavirus more.

    Their job has been to take out vermin their entire lives. The only time they were ill was if they ate something (hence our trade for treats), then they would hork up the mess all over my car and feel fine.


    ReplyDelete
  18. Bless Susie for giving you the time to share this adventure with us.
    Some clever individual once said:
    Age and Treachery will overcome Youth and Skill. Go Dinah!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mugs, once again, you did it! Just loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. MicheleL-"Age and Treachery will overcome Youth and Skill"

    Love it- am stealing it....

    ReplyDelete
  21. The question I'm dying to ask is:

    Is Becky getting a horse from Southern California?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Got a random question, what is Sonita's full registered name? I have a Sonita bred horse and am just curious.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Oh I laughed at this story! Loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Oh I laughed at this story! Loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Shots of course, didn't think of that duh! I'm not usually so dim, honest!

    ReplyDelete
  26. wow, all that and you can pull off comedy too!!!

    Glad the dogs still got what it takes !

    ReplyDelete
  27. :) I can visualise the chaos. I occasionally get birds or bats in my house with similar excitement from cats and dogs, or in the yard if one of the chickens have escaped their coop. My solution now is to lock all the cats and dogs out of the room where the bird/bat is (or inside if it's a chicken situation), and open the window in the room, and just wait a few hours. The bird/bat finds it's way out or the chicken finds it's way back to the flock, and I don't have a mess to clean up.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Wow! What a great read!! I am on my lunch break and feeling super energized after that dazzling display of squirrel hunting as could only be described by Janet.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I was wondering if someone was going to mention that old song! Tooo funny!

    I used to have a sign in the back room of my office that said "Old Age and Treachery Will Overcome Youth and Skill" - so true!

    ReplyDelete