We Are Hot! Squirrels Are Observed!

It's been 100F here the past three days. Even the Saudi-born dog and cat think it's too damned hot!

HellBeast is a furtive little fucker so when he comes out of his various hidey holes to lay under the ceiling fan, you know it's hot!

On a completely unrelated topic, two days ago while trimming the grass along the fence, I noticed a divot under the fence between my yard and that of my neighbor. I thought, that's new. Why is there a bare patch of dirt worn under the fence? To my astonishment, this afternoon when I was washing up, I saw from the kitchen window a sqwerl skulking along the fence line, eventually diving through that very same divot. It appears that he has discovered my compost pile.

He will not be happy when the dogs discover him. We already know that Mimi and sqwerls do not do well together (sqwerl death and a large vet bill were involved). I suspect Azza will be no more forgiving.

It's Not Just Mimi...

Mimi's vet sent these to me.




Unfortunately, this is not how Mimi's squirrel fight ended:

A Series of Unfortunate Events

With apologies to D. Handler.

Warning: This post contains some graphic photos. And lest you think I am just too morbid, sacrificing my pups' safety for the sake of the blog, all photos were taken after it was all over.

The Bad Beginning. Early last week, I was home for lunch as usual. The dogs were snoozing in the sun as usual. Suddenly, I heard rattling and banging and looked out to see Jack pawing and nosing the downspout of a gutter next to the back of the house. I went out to see what in the world he was doing and heard scrabbling and rustling coming from inside the downspout!

I wiggled the downspout and the scrabbling noises became louder and a bit more frantic, and Jack became even more interested in the situation.

The Wide Window. I have a bird feeder in the front of the house that attracts many dozens of birds of different types and my first thought was that somehow a bird fell or got trapped in the downspout. I got a couple of screwdrivers and an adjustable wrench from the garage and removed the curved bottom piece from the vertical part of the downspout. The curved piece was squashed and it was clear that whatever was trapped couldn't get out by climbing back up the vertical pipe and certainly couldn't get out of the smaller space at the bottom.

Where it all started.

Jack almost got his nose pinched several times as I levered the curved piece off the bottom. At last it was off and Jack proceeded to try to jam his nose up into the vertical pipe. Still thinking there was a bird in there, I decided to move the dogs into the house to see if it would leave on its own.

I put Cap in his crate inside, and left Harry, Dyna, and Gracie loose in the house. Mimi was still on her tether outside with Jack.

I grabbed a mirror and after wiggling the vertical pipe some more, managed to produce louder scrabbling and more frenzied sniffing and pawing from Jack but no creature. So I put the mirror under the opening to see what I could see.

Imagine my surprise at seeing a squirrel staring back at me!

I was so startled that I dropped the mirror and broke it.

The Carnivorous Carnival. I rattled the vertical pipe some more and saw squirrel paws slipping out every so often. He wouldn't come out on his own but perhaps he could be...removed.

And here is where I made one of the bigger errors of this entire circus of mistakes. I put Jack in the house and let Mimi off her tether. She shot over to the downspout. I shook it really hard, a paw slipped out, and Mimi dragged that squirrel right out of the pipe!

Normally, when my fox terriers grab a small animal, they get it by the head or the neck and dispatch it in a fraction of a second with a good hard shake.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen this time.

Mimi grabbed the squirrel by the abdomen and the furry bastard wrapped itself around her head like a barnacle.

The Slippery Slope. Every shake of Mimi's head made the squirrel latch on tighter, and it was squealing and biting and clawing her face and neck. This made Mimi even more pissed and she shook her head harder. And because Mimi is a good terrier, she never let go but squeezed her jaws ever tighter, despite the jets of red blood shooting off her face and throat.

I was horrified. I knew the ultimate outcome, of course, but could not intervene to hasten it along.

I ran in the house, crated Gracie and Jack, and ran back outside to witness the final seconds of the battle. Mimi squeezed the squirrel to death.

As far as I could tell, all of the blood is Mimi's.

The Grim Grotto. After making sure the squirrel was indeed dead, I grabbed Mimi and ran out to the car and put her into one of the crates. Her face was hugely swollen and ugly bruises were already starting to show. The blood was still dripping but at least not jetting out like before. I had to hose the crate out later that afternoon and soak the crate pad before I could wash it.

Blood on the back porch that dripped from Mimi as I was carrying her to the car.

I dialed my vet as I pulled out of my driveway, and called in to work on the way. A tense 10 minutes later, I pulled in, grabbed my pup, and hustled her into the building where they had an exam room open and waiting for me. Two techs and two vets started swarming over her. Could they shave her face to examine the bites? Could they sedate her? I said, yes, yes, do whatever needs to be done.

Bruising.

The Penultimate Peril. Nothing was life threatening and in fact, one of the deepest bites was inside her cheek which the vet's write up described as "self inflicted bite wound during fight with squirrel." The squirrel had bitten her many, many times below her right eye and along her throat so the swelling and bruising were pretty horrific but the bite wounds themselves were not that deep.

Yeah, it does look horrible but it was more like scrapes than punctures.

The End. They sedated her, cleaned her up, and kept her for a few hours. I brought her home for the night. She looked pretty pathetic and was quite subdued from the combination of drugs, coming off her adrenaline high, and the trauma of the fight.

Of course I was leaving for a business trip the next morning (these things always happen on holidays or before I have to take a trip), so I decided to return her to the vet instead of the boarding kennel with the other dogs. The vet took good care of her for me.

Today, five days after it happened, Mimi is still subdued and doesn't even want to play with Cap. She's on antibiotics and deramax and plenty of rest and TLC.

Four Short Stories

1. Organic Gardening
Five of these giant mushroom colonies grew up around my seedless mulberry. I pulled them all up and put them in my compost bin.





2. Co-lateral Squirrel Damage
I live in a fairly densely wooded area. Most of the trees are 20+ years old and support a prolific squirrel population. I also keep a bird feeder, a Squirrel Buster, which I can say truly does work as advertised, but the birds are picky and thus messy and the squirrels (and the doves and other ground feeders) eat the seeds that get tossed onto the ground. I'd have squirrels running around anyway, but the free food does tend to attract them. Imagine my horror last weekend when I discovered a piece of siding that had been either pulled out or that had fallen from under one of my roof eaves. It could only mean squirrels were now romping and procreating in my attic! Oh my god. I called a wildlife removal service that offers humane solutions, not traps or poisons. Two guys showed up this morning, one a new trainee. They poked around my roof for a while, then asked to get into the attic. The primary access is from the garage. The trainee proceeded to step off the staircase right through the ceiling of my garage.


At least it was the garage and not the living room or my bedroom so clean up was easy. This is a fixable problem and I didn't get terribly wound up about it. And thankfully, there was no evidence that squirrels, or god forbid, raccoons et al., had taken up residence inside my attic. The hole under the eave is now fixed. The hole in my garage ceiling will be fixed in a couple of days (paid for of course by the wildlife removal company).


3. Who Needs Throw Pillows?
I don't have cable or satellite TV. I don't watch enough TV to justify the expense. But I do watch TV sometimes. And when I sit down on the couch, I am immediately surrounded by dogs and cats all vying for the prime position of my lap. As a result, none of them actually get to sit in my lap. So Gracie and Lola have come up with the best compromise by taking spots on the back of the couch. Lola tucks in behind my neck (a warm, furry, purring pillow) and Gracie likes to drape her front paws and head over my shoulder.



4. Amazing Gracie
In class on Monday night, Gracie got introduced to an Aframe contact. Debbie is having us backchain contact performance. That is, they didn't do the entire Aframe, only the last few feet of it. We either lifted them up and put them on the down side of the Aframe or we lured them up. There was a target on the ground at the bottom of the contact. Because my own Aframe is currently being rehabbed (details to come), I've only worked Gracie at home on a 12" wide plank on the ground. So she'd not seen a slanted contact before. She happily jumped up on it, turned around, and raced down to the target, dropping into the most beautiful down with her front paws on the target, lined up perfectly straight on the obstacle, and repeatedly offered a nose touch for multiple click/treats. I released her with my command "okay!" and she came running off towards me. I turned and stepped into her with the intent of slipping her collar/leash back on, but I've been doing a lot of flat work with her and she interpreted my movement differently. She turned when I turned, ran back up the contact, spun around, ran to the bottom, and dropped into a down, paws on the target. It happened so quickly that I could hardly get treats out fast enough. How can I characterize this sort of learning? It happened in a single session. Gracie is apparently just as scary smart as her sister Mimi but WAAAAY more focused on me from the outset.

So tonight, I decided to test what she actually did learn. I propped one end of my 12" wide training plank up--a terribly shaky set up to be sure. Nothing was tied down or particularly solid. This plank is a 1/2" by 12" board that I nailed some slats to and then painted with primer and sand. Nothing fancy. But it's a versatile training tool to work contacts.

Gracie wasn't sure that a wobbly 12" board was at all the same as a nice, wide, stable Aframe. So I lured her up the board twice, then had her turn on the board--make a 180degree turn on that 12" wide wobbly board, not a trivial move by any means--and when she saw the target on the ground at the end, she SHOT to the end of the board and dropped into a down, paws on the target. Amazing. I didn't get any pics of her on the board but here's my little set up.


I'm going to have to get a personal exercise trainer to keep up with these sisters if they both proceed to make all this potential the real deal.