This will take a little explaining, so please be patient.
One side of our kitchen is unfinished and will eventually have cabinets and a countertop. In the meantime, the dog’s (Antoine, a 9.3 lb. miniature English poodle) food/water dish is there, along with a puppy housetraining pad from which he has long since graduated. We’ve kept a fresh pad there just in case, but he hasn’t used it.
It seems, one morning we discovered that the resident mouseinthewall decided, since Antione isn’t going to use the pad, he (the mouse) could put it to good use, and he commenced his project. It took about a week. Every morning, the children would report excitedly on the mouse’s progress. (The first photo, upper left corner is a reenactment, but the other three are the real thing.) To give a sense of the scope of this undertaking, the pad is about two feet square.
So now, Mr. Mouseinthewall has a nice, warm nest at an undisclosed location somewhere on the premises.
Since Antione arrived about 15 months ago, the household mouse dynamics have changed. Whatever mice are sharing this house with us have become more secretive, and I haven’t seen evidence of a mouse in my office for a long time. I suspect they’re poaching snacks from Antione’s supper dish, but I’ve never seen any conclusive evidence of that. There is, however, circumstancial evidence in the fact that a mousehole of classic half moon proportions has appeared in the base of the drywall near the dish. That’s the same area of the wall under which the training pad gradually dematerialized.
I have seen this mouse, incidentally. He appears occasionally in the kitchen when nobody’s been around for awhile, quite furtive. Not one of those eye contact, “I’ll have a little snack here while you tweak whistles over there” mice. And he’s quite a large mouse. Possibly twice the size of Ralph I, Ralph II, Gus or Mouse. But he’s definitely a mouse. Not nearly big enough to be a rat. (The aforementioned are all rather diminutive mice.)
Here, for reference, is the hound, in his hope springs eternal “I’ll have what you’re having” pose.
If Mr. Mouseinthewall manages to drag home an electric guitar through his mousehole, I fear we’re in for some sleepless nights. Ralph I used to gnaw, but I’m afraid this would be worse.
I realize the gratuituous cat and mousetrap remarks are inevitable on these threads, but unless there’s a modicum of wit involved, they annoy me nonetheless.
The “ex” has a large tract of property down in the Red River Gorge area of Kentucky. There is a house on it, but it’s seen a LOT better days, half the roof is gone, walls ripped into, etc. There’s a huge pack rat next on the second floor of it.
Tim takes a cot with him and sleeps in the house on occasion. One morning, he couldn’t find one of his leather work gloves. After looking around, he found it stuck in the wall - evidently the pack rat(s) tried to take it up stairs but could only get the finger in the hole in the wall, it got stuck at the palm portion. But they would take ANYTHING they could up there.
Here’s a picture of them - they look like giant gerbils:
Ralph II was one of the best pets I’ve ever had. I still grieve when I think of the way he kept stopping and looking back at me as he crept off into the woods the day I had to catch and release him.
Yesterday, the children placed another training pad in the place where the mouse had removed the previous one. This morning, it had disappeared halfway into the gap under the drywall.
Out of curiosity, I pulled it some of the way back out. It was mostly intact, not shredded. Dweezil Mouseinthewall had pulled the pad through a narrow gap, remarkably far into the wall. It took considerable force to pull it back.
The two or three times I’ve seen Dweezil Mouseinthewall, I’ve been impressed by what a robust mouse he appears to be, but I must say I was taken aback to realize what a truly muscular animal he is. I’m thinking he must wedge himself in the small spaces and apply the full force of his whole mouse body to be able to pull so hard.
My daughter Abby asked to borrow my cat to try to take care of some mice that had taken up housekeeping at her place Keep in mind this cat’s nickname is Pyscho-kitty, and she also answers to Ms Attitude. PK is strictly an indoor cat, but has very little tolerance for any other animals…inside or out. She used to tangle with my daughters pit bull on a regular basis, and win.
Anyway, I stuff the cat into a pillowcase and haul her over to my daughters place
For the first 3 days the cat hid, coming out only at night to feed.
On the 4th day, I get a highly agitated call from Abby. She finally found out where the cat was hiding. PK had taken up residence in a dresser drawer under the bed…sharing the space with the very same mice Abby had hoped the cat would kill!
Having observed Mr. Mouseinthewall’s prodigious tugging capacity, I’m trying to figure out a way to teach him to take out the trash. Lord knows, I can’t train the children to do it.
