The Mystery of the Rat

Twas the night before Wednesday and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a rat....A RAT????

"There's a mouse in the house!"

"A mouse! A mouse!"

"There's a mouse in my room!"

"A mouse! A mouse!"

I sat in front of my computer typing away, trying to ignore the histrionics happening on the other side of the house. The shrieking was getting louder and my son was jumping around like a wild banshee. I continued typing away, trying to ignore the chaos.

I was sure that the mouse, if it had any survival instinct at all, would flee for its life and vacate the premises. It was surrounded by a teen girl shrieking and an eight year old boy hopping through the room yelling "A mouse! A mouse!" I started feeling sorry for the poor little mouse and it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the bedlam.

My husband finally got out of bed to investigate. I settled back down to my computer. I was sure he could effectively deal with this crisis on his own. After all, he is the man who successfully captured the last mouse a few months ago at 2am, in his underwear, while his daughter and wife were huddled on the furniture pointing him in the right direction. He is a professional, in my estimation.

Unfortunately the chaos did not die down, it increased in intensity. It was becoming obvious that I was going to have to intervene. As I walked down the hall I quickly ascertained that the situation was much worse than I had anticipated. My son was in his underwear jumping around with a wild gleam in his eyes yelling "A mouse! A mouse!" my daughter was on the verge of hysteria, at least she was clothed. My husband, also clothed thankfully, was assessing the situation.

Apparently one of our cats brought a live mouse, a very large mouse, into my daughter's room. Unfortunately all the excitement that was given to this wondrous event spooked the cat and he dropped it and ran for his life. Now we had a live mouse, a very large live mouse, loose in my daughter's room and both cats were nowhere to be found.

Plan #1: Find cat. Put cat in room. Close door. Cat captures Very Large Mouse.

Sounds like the perfect plan, but there was one glitch. One of our cats is an excellent hunter, our other cat is missing a few very important brain cells. The hunter is easily spooked. All the excitement had sent him running for the hills. Our mentally challenged cat was still in the house trying to figure out what was going on. He was lovingly captured and set loose in the room with the door closed. We waited for him to catch the Very Large Mouse. Shockingly, he did so rather quickly. Sadly, he lost it just as quickly and couldn't find it again. When he curled up on my daughter's bed (the cat, not the Very Large Mouse) and started grooming himself (did I mention he is a gorgeous cat?), we gave up on Plan #1.

Plan #2: Systematically move all furniture and detritus on the floor. Search for Very Large Mouse. Kick cat out of room.

We were planning our attack, trying to decide where to begin (remember, this is a 13 year old girl's room, scary in its own right) when we had the distinct feeling that we were being watched. We slowly turned around and saw two beady little eyes watching us with his nose twitching. It was not a Very Large Mouse, it was a RAT!! I hate to admit this, but I shrieked. The rat scampered away. I left the room and closed the door and wished my husband and daughter luck. I became the Disaster Relief Coordinator (DRC) safely behind the closed door.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, a 13 year old girl's room is a very scary place without a rat running free in it....with a rat running free in it, it becomes a place you don't want to enter in bare feet, in the dark, by yourself. I was on the other side of the door performing my DRC functions, very competently I might add. I was beginning to become distraught by the sounds emanating from the room. I heard banging and crashing and loud voices and a few expletives. I increased my DRC duties as I increased the volume of my voice, just to be heard above the racket, of course. All this to no avail....the maelstrom continued. I again increased my DRC tactics only to be told to be quiet.

Suddenly the door opened and a chair was thrust into my arms. The door closed. Just as suddenly it opened again and I was given the beanbag chair. The door closed. Confused, I again tried my DRC maneuvers only to be told again to be quiet or do the job myself. Stunned I stood in the hall and watched my husband walk away and leave me with a beanbag chair in my hands, my daughter, her scary room, and the rat.

I dropped the chair, stepped into the room and noticed that my feet were bare. I almost ran, but I could not leave my daughter alone with the rat. I put my bare feet out of my mind and closed the door. I was now in the scary room with my daughter and the rat.

We started our own Rat Recovery Process. One by one we moved the furniture. Inch by inch we worked our way around the room. We found socks, pencils, necklaces, coins, books, barrettes, pens....piles and piles of treasures. No rat. We moved more furniture. We found dust bunnies...whole colonies of dust bunnies. No rat.

Finally we were at the last part of the room. The darkest, scariest place of all.....the closet. We slowly and gingerly emptied the closet item by item....shoe by shoe. No rat.

Eventually her room was clean...every inch inspected. Every pencil put away, every dust bunny eradicated. No rat.

It disappeared.

To this day...we have not found the rat. Did he wait for the perfect opportunity and escape? We don't know....it is a mystery.

Minutes from Our Meeting

We had our family meeting today to decide the fate of this sweet monster currently residing in our house. It was a wonderfully productive meeting with full participation on everyone's part!


The general consensus was our love for Baron and wanting to keep him in our family. Great...I agreed with everyone and then asked the question..."What are you willing to do to help with his training and upkeep?"


That is when the silence became deafening.


We talked about the daily training he needs, the consistency he needs, we need to increase his exercise (one walk a day is not enough!!), etc, etc.....I made my point clear that we need to work as a team in order to have success. If we weren't able to do that, then it was not fair or healthy for Baron to remain in our house. We would be doing him and us a great disservice.


More silence but you could hear the brain cells clicking.


The ideas started flowing....Cassie agreed to walk him on occasion, Michael agreed to play ball in the backyard with him, Dave agreed to walk him and not play roughly with him, I have already started taking him to the dog park on my lunch break during days that I work.....this is all great. We also agreed that Michael could feed him in the afternoons. All of us agreed to spend 5-10 minutes a day doing basic obedience commands with him (sit, down, stay, come). These are all steps in the right direction!!


When Michael feeds him, he first puts him on a down/stay. He then puts the food in his bowl and releases him from his stay to eat. I am standing right there and I continue to pet him while he is eating. Michael is able to pet his hind end while he is eating now which is great progress. Baron has been wonderful and I can see the food aggression diminishing.


Baron is a very smart dog and has been easy to train, he learns the commands quickly. He is also very stubborn and strong willed. I firmly believe that he is testing his boundaries right now and we need to teach him that even the children are above him in the pecking order. I think we can get through this with lots of patience, love, consistency, and firmness. He is a great dog and has so many wonderful attributes.


At the end of our meeting we had a group hug and Baron wormed his way in the middle and looked up at us with a huge smile on his face. I think he knew he was just given a reprieve. It was a beautiful moment.


Thank you everyone for all your kind words and advice....I greatly appreciate it. I will definitely keep you posted on our progress. It is also reassuring to know that if we find out that we are not the right family for Baron, he has a safe, nurturing home to go to....but we are hoping he can stay in our family!!

Ramblings

This post may or may not make sense tonight. I feel the need to write about my week, so much has happened....it may be very disjointed. Please bear with me here.


My mother in law has an infection in her knee. She had her knee replaced over 2 weeks ago and it is still infected. This is limiting the amount of physical therapy she is capable of doing and I am very worried about her and how this will affect the success of her knee. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.


Report cards came home on Monday. Cassie did very well, she has mostly A's, a couple of B's, a C in math (no surprise) and a D in Literature!! A 'D'!!! She had an A in that class the previous month. We were very shocked, to say the least. We told her to talk to the teacher and find out why she received that grade. The teacher told her that she was missing assignments, Cassie said that she turned them in....hmm...something seems a bit fishy here. I need to make an appointment with the teacher to find out exactly what the problem is. We also got the results of the standardized test she took in Sept. Her scores were very good. She is above average in everything but math...again no surprise. Her highest scores were in language and writing....no surprise again. Fortunately her math teacher, who we had a meeting with 2 weeks ago, has agreed to tutor Cassie every Monday after school for an hour. This is very kind and generous of her...any ideas on what we can do for her to show our appreciation??


Now on to Michael's report card......he does not get grades (A's, B's, etc), but he is doing well and has good marks in all his subjects. His test scores though....incredible....he scored in the 99th percentile in reading....98th percentile in science...his overall composite score was 95. That means that only 5 percent of 3rd graders in the nation that took this test did better than him. We were shocked. We had a meeting with his teacher today...and she said she was shocked when she saw his scores. He obviously is one smart little boy. Now we have a decision to make...do we leave him in the Catholic school, or do we put him in the public school and he can go into the GATE (gifted) program?? If he stays in the Catholic school, he can try for a scholarship for high school. If he goes to the public school he will have more opportunities and challenges. We asked his teacher today and she is leaning towards public but wants more information on the GATE program at the school he would go to. We need to gather information and schedule another meeting with his teacher. Maybe he is so difficult to parent because he is so smart?? I don't know but he sure is cute!!


You would think that would be enough for one week?? Nope, there is more....


Our sweet dog Baron is turning into a monster. All of a sudden his personality is changing and he is showing aggression towards the kids. He is now 18 months old and has always been a challenge to train, he is the hardest dog I have ever trained. This week he has snapped at both kids and is now showing food aggression. We have hired trainers this past year to help us with other issues, but my money tree is running out and right now I just can't afford it. Baron is not the first dog I have trained, but is definitely the hardest. I spoke with his breeder last night...who also happens to be a good friend, and she gave me some advice and helpful hints. She also said she would take him back if needed. We have to make a decision now whether to keep him or not....I hate this!! I wish I could really talk to Baron and tell him to stop this craziness. We are having a family meeting this weekend to talk about this. I think we can work together as a family in training him through these issues....I hope we can. Right now I am afraid to have my children's friends come over...Baron is too unpredictable. We have never had this problem....it is very hard.


What a week!! I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving and I am cooking for both sides of the family!!!



Thanks for listening.....

Meet Froggy and Fred

Isn't this little guy adorable??

You can barely see this one, but he is equally cute.

These are our newest additions to our menagerie....Fred and Froggy. I am not sure who is who but I am sure my kids can tell you. They are Red Eyed Tree Frogs and they joined our family today. Michael has had a fascination with these creatures for awhile now. He has written two reports on them in school, one last year and one this year.

Last Friday Dave and I went to the East Bay Vivarium, one of our favorites places to visit, to get mice for our snake, and we saw these adorable babies in one of their tanks. Both of us became very excited and decided to come back with the kids to purchase a couple of them. Today we readied an empty tank and drove to the store. We were all very excited.

They are now home and getting acclimated to their new environment. They definitely are cute little buggers.

BTW...the Vivarium is a great place to people watch....you see all kinds in there...some are as frightening as the creatures behind the glass!!

Public Service Announcement

I am still visiting Fun Mondays.....I will be by soon to visit.....If you haven't visited other FM participants I highly encourage you to do so this week...the posts and comments are hysterical!!!





I loved all the words for my FM post....great job everyone!! It looks like the photo moved you as much as it moved me.





Now I will leave you with the following PSA to ponder while I continue my FM visiting:





Never stand behind a dog while he is searching for the elusive sand crab. Please refer to the following evidence:

(I don't know how to edit it and it is kinda long, you can quit watching it after the first 50 sec. or so)

Our New Slinky Pet

This beautiful creature is our newest pet. His name is Sammie and he is a corn snake. He is just a baby and will grow to be about 4 feet long, he is currently about a foot long. His markings are gorgeous and the kids are smitten with him.


Last night we were awoken at 3 am by a loud screeching noise. Our cat brought a live mouse in the house and he decided that our bedroom would be an excellent room to play with the mouse. We didn't think that was such a great idea. I jumped out of bed and opened our door to the backyard and the cat was worried we would take his pet away from him. He grabbed his toy and ran outside. Boy, were we relieved. There is nothing worse than chasing/capturing a live mouse in the middle of the night. We have had to do that many times.


I will post the next installment of our Adoption Journey on Tuesday...the excitement is just beginning...stay tuned.


See you tomorrow for Fun Monday....

Heartfelt Thank You

Thank you everyone for your kind words and hugs on my previous post. They mean so much to us!! I spoke with the vet yesterday and because of Zack's other health issues, he has pancreatitis, we have decided not to give him anymore meds. One of the meds used to treat this cancer is prednisone and that would exasperate his pancreatitis. When he has a flare up of that he is violently ill. We want to spare him of that at all costs. We don't know how fast this cancer will progress....time will tell. We are going to keep him comfortable and enjoy every minute we have with him.

Zack has been an awesome dog and a wonderful companion. We will know when the time comes. We have done this before with our beloved Koni. She died 3 years ago at the age of 15. It is very hard and painful, but it is also peaceful because you know you are doing the right thing.

On another note....my son is home sick today so I am housebound and plan on writing the next and final installment in Our Adoption Journey....

Don't forget to enter my contest ... the winner will be drawn at random on Friday. There have been some wonderful acts of kindness performed this week!!

The Circle of Life

Is that a face only a mother could love? If you knew this guy, you would love him too! He is 120 pounds of pure love and joy. He will be 10 years old next month, and we just found out that he has malignant Grade 3 mast cell tumor. Our hearts are breaking.

His name is Zack and he came into our lifes as an 8 week old puppy. He weighed 15 pounds that day and we had no idea he would get so big. He is a boxer/lab cross and has the best of both breeds in him. We think he is like Clifford the Big Red Dog....he grew so big because of all the love he was given. Zack has given it back two fold.

He is my shadow, follows me everywhere. Always looking to me, making sure all is well. I can no longer say the word "walk" without instantaneous excitement. We started spelling it...he figured that out also. He is our Big Galoot...he has captured everyone's heart.

Why does it have to hurt so bad? I can't stop crying....we all can't stop crying.

We have decided to just do palliative care at this point. We don't want him to suffer at all. When the time comes, we will give him peace and let him go with dignity....God, please give us strength to know when the time is right.

Zack has given us so much in his 10 years.....We love you Big Guy.

Baron Speaks

Baron obviously has a lot to say tonight which is great because I can't think of a darn thing to blog about.....I have cleaned way too many teeth this week and I have to clean more tomorrow. I am tired, tired, tired.....So, instead of listening to me tonight, you get to listen to Baron.

"I am Alien Dog....I come in peace from the Planet Morph. Listen to me and I will do you no harm. I have simple needs. Daily walk, a meal twice a day, daily swims, a run through the sprinklers, a scratch behind my ear, a belly rub. Oh....also you can't leave me alone because I will seek and destroy all your possessions and will enjoy doing it."

I think that about does it...hopefully tomorrow night I have more energy and will be able to provide you with a more interesting post!!

Not Your Average Pet

It is time for Get to Know Our Pets. They are not average 4 legged creatures...they are special and unique in their own little ways. If you came to our house to meet them you would think they were ordinary dogs and cats....But we know different.... they have special powers. They can Morph!! OK, OK...I hear what you're thinking - I hear you laughing....BUT WAIT....I have proof. Here they are in all their Morphing wonder, and now the world will know how talented our pets are.

Zack is our boxer/lab mutt by day....by night he morphs into a .....


...Pig!! That's right....a Big Black Pig With a Huge Black Snout!! While he is a pig he roots through all the garbage cans and takes his treasures outside to enjoy in privacy.


Baron is our Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy. He is still perfecting his Morphing ways....he is only 7 months old right now. He has tried many morphs along the way....testing them out....trying to find The Perfect One. Here are some of the morphs he has tested....

...a Bat. Correction: a Sleeping Bat in the Daytime Laying in the Crook of a Little Girl's Arm.

He has also tried the Seal Morph. This worked well for awhile but when he asked for an appointment with the Chiropractor I told him that this morph had to go.!!

Tucker is our youngest cat. We rescued him when he was 3 weeks old and bottle fed him for quite awhile...he had a hard time giving it up!! His morphing ways came about quite naturally to him. He knew what he wanted from an early age and the fit was perfect....

....he is the Gremlin Morph....remember that movie?? Maybe we should have named him Gizmo??

Rooney is our orange boy. He is named after my favorite footballer - Wayne Rooney from the best soccer (also known as REAL Football) team - Manchester United!! Ahem...back to the morphs....Rooney also came into his Morph at an early age and it fit him perfectly.....

...he is Non Nocturnal Non Hanging By Feet Bat. Just look at those ears. He did eventually grow into them!!

There you have it....those are our Pets Covered With Fur...the reptile pets will have to wait for another day. I will now leave you with one more picture of Zack. We call this his "Poor Pitiful Me" Face.