By Friday I'd caught five mice. Each day showed less evidence of mice and longer hours between catches. I was going away for the weekend. I deactivated the traps. I figured that it'd be mean to trap them if I wasn't around to spring them after a few hours.
The exception was my Hav-a-Heart rodent trap. It was much larger. With extra bait, any mouse would have plenty of food and room.
Wait! I thought. The mouse, if you catch one, will make a mess. Why don't you put the trap outside? Between your back door and the bushes they hide out in? That way you can hose off anything left over.
Over the weekend I read the blog comments congratulating me for my kindness. Yes, I thought, the rodents of the world are lucky to have me. I'm a kind person. I'm a good person!
When I got home, I checked the Hav-a-Heart. Inside was a very freaked out squirrel! Had he been trapped all weekend? There was enough food (and room) for a mouse, but this guy was huge. Chihuahua sized! I'd let a cute furry animal be stuck in a tiny cage- perhaps over twenty four hours. So much for kindness. And no water! Mice get most of their liquid from their food- but maybe squirrels needed extra. He stared at me with big black eyes as if to say You! You did this to me! I apologized and and opened the door. Or tried to. Apparently the captive had broken at the mechanism that releases it. It wouldn't open. It took me ten minutes of prying with a big knitting needle to pop the door, which freaked the squirrel even further.
Finally the door sprung. The captive stuck his head out but just sat there.
I hope you're happy, I told myself. He's lost his will to live. Nice work! I put some peanut butter and crackers out for him, and a dish of water. Was it too late?
When i checked a few minutes later, the food had scattered, the dish was overturned and he was gone. I guess he changed his mind about the will to live.
9 comments:
so glad he made it out of there!
Me too!
I'm surprised he got in there in the first place- he has his own feeder on the other side of the yard, plus I thought, as a squirrel, he'd be smart enough to steer clear of a strange object that suddenly appeared. I guess curiosity got the better of him.
This is hilarious.
Thanks Linda,
I haven't caught a mouse (or anything else) in the last few days. I think they've moved on. In the meantime, the guy who lives in the front unit of the duplex asked to borrow one of my mousetraps...
So they all ran over to his place?
Congrats on being so kind to all of them.
Hi Stray,
They either ran to his place or were there all along. We share a raised foundation so it'd be easy for them to sneak over to his end and squeeze their way in (they're about half the size of pet store mice).
The squirrel begs to differ about my kindness. I'm gonna some walnuts for him when I swing by the store tonight as an apology gift.
Wait- two more trapped mice were waiting for me when I returned from work.
I want to secure the movie rights for the whole series :)
Can't wait to see how what kind of defense that Squirrel lawyer tries to present...
Thanks Walterworld.
I saw the lawyer sneaking around the yard today. He ordered that I free his clients immediately on the grounds that I couldn't prove that it wasn't a rogue gopher who had trashed the cupboard. He also requested I leave more peanuts out for him.
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