Zorro the Mighty Hunter

SUMMARY: No! Dead! Rodents! In! House! Please!

Backfill: From June 26  and 27 on Facebook. Posted here July 2.

June 26, 7:14 PM:

Day 3 of the Vermin Killer: Mongo gopher got taken down today. Zorro nearly killed himself in the process--fortunately I was home and went looking for him. When I finally yelled sternly, Zorro, Come!, I heard a sound near the hot wooden shed in the side yard. Or... IN the shed. He pushed through the crappy doors into the shed apparently to finalize the transaction, but they don't push out. Still clutching the monster in his jaws. Seemed happy to see me.

Dork. Must find a solution for those doors.

P.S. I don't know which are gophers and which are ground squirrels--I don't actually look that closely usually. "big furry dead thing that's not a cat." ;-) My soil is also highly clay and bakes like rock in the summer, however, I do water during the summer usually, and that probably helps them, no matter which they are.

June 27 12:07 PM:

Yesterday the mighty hunter was so desperately hot on a hot day--after spending quite a long time digging a mongo hole** under my waterfall-that-has-never-worked and then chasing the very large squirrel or gopher into the shed--that when I freed him from the shed, he brought the corpus delicti inside and dropped it on my front-hall rug. After I chased him outside with it, he came back in and dropped it on the rug in the downstairs bathroom. I chased him out again and when he brought it back in and dropped it on the kitchen rug, I started tossing cookies into the hallway while I extirpated the unwelcome "visitor". ("In a bag in the trash" = "destroyed completely")

Revisiting the scenes of the crime. Now you know, when you come to visit, which carpets to not rub your face on.

** Begging the question of who is really doing more damage to my backyard…

My beautiful hall carpet. Probably the one that I like the best in my house at this time. Not that it has a lot of competition, but I love the colors. (which, incidentally, are a rich deep red, and a wonderful navy blue, and kind of an ivory yellow.)And he dropped a giant corpse on it!

The bathroom carpet where Zorro's catch briefly resided.
(When the guy came to strip the wallpaper, fix the water damage, and paint the walls and ceiling, I said, don't bother painting the vanity; I want to do it!
In April 2019. The paint is waiting for me...)

The “kitchen” carpet. It’s really just something to wipe feet on, and for the dogs to land on when they come through the dog door with their muddy feet. But, still...

Side note I commented in Facebook:  The gophers are active enough this spring that I have been able to collect the dirt that they shove out their back door and use it to fill all the previous pits of peril created mostly by Chip but sometimes Zorro and rarely by gophers. I also am very good at finding all of those by stepping on what I think is solid grass and twisting my ankle. I have actually run out of places to put those mounds of dirt and am stacking it on my patio for future needs! Sheesh.

Zorro Has A Lot Going On

SUMMARY: He is keeping Human Mom busy.

Backfill: From Facebook June 25; posted here July 2

We’ve been working on weave poles – – first time in a very long time that I’ve felt like actually doing agility training in my yard. We haven’t been working on the dogwalk, but that’s OK, because Zorro takes it all by himself.

The hunting business is hopping.  Yesterday he caught a ground squirrel, last night or this morning, two small rats. (And the next day there'll be a gopher or squirrel, and the next day another squirrel.)

We’ve been going for a walk once or twice every day, which is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt like making that effort.

There’s always the shower to lick out after Human Mom squeegees it.

This morning, Human Mom did her best to play the game he and Chip would play: bitey face and then tuck tail and chase each other frantically back-and-forth in the upstairs hall and bedroom;
Zorro got fully into it, and mom used her hand as the bitey face, rolled around on the bed with him doing it, and then back-and-forth excitedly up and down the hallway.


And lots and lots of massaging of the neck and back and legs, and just snuggling.

Martial Cottle Park mini-hike During COVID

SUMMARY: Zorro doesn't mind.

Backfill: From Facebook June 22; posted here July 2. Trying to catch up on my life here instead of lost on Facebook.

I’ve been avoiding walking in the park behind my house: Too many people mostly without masks these days. So we headed out about 6:20; cold air; strong chilling breeze that kept my hair blown over my eyes; overcast. I figured, all the wimps will be at home.

Hmmm—In the days of SIP **, apparently nobody is a wimp.

** Shelter In Place -- it has been just over 3 months now

And my mask broke.

But Zorro got to explore many, many, many gopher holes.

And we got about a mile in, fourth day in a row.

Canis Tika vs Rodentia

SUMMARY: Tika removes many rodents from this world. And is making a fine mess, too.

Tika has declared a personal jihad against rodents of all sizes and shapes. She has always been an avid verbal abuser of squirrels (and occasionally has sent one to the great walnut in the sky), but now--perhaps it's because they plowed the 200 acres of grassy field recently--we have an infestation of small skittering things. Mostly mice, but I've noticed an influx of lizards, too. I think the lizards are too subtle for tika--or, at least, I've not found any little ex-lizards.

On Monday, I picked up three late mice and a very very late rat. On Tuesday, Boost went into her "alert! danger!" mode out back, which she usually reserves for when I've done something dire such as, say, move a chair from one side of the yard to another. I went out to see what was up. As usual, she takes my company as good backup and proceeds farther into the yard towards whatever it is, at which point I can walk up to whatever it is and calmly pat it while she creeps forward and stretches out her nose to sniff, while yet ready to run away with all due haste if it makes a sudden move, say, back to its original side of the yard.

However, in this case, I didn't see anything out of place where she was barking, and it became apparent that her focus was on the shrubbery along the rear fence. Sure enough, as I came near, there was a rustling of old dead shrubbery leaves. I approached cautiously, with images of the rattler that came in from somewhere 3 or 4 years back, when suddenly a blur of gray shot past me from behind (no, not Boost) and plunged into the shrubbery. While I yelled futilely, there was a tremendous to-do among the foliage, then brief stillness, then Tika emerged cheerily, shook herself off, and trotted away in search of mice.

I peered cautiously under the bush and found a freshly dispatched gopher.

Now, it's all very well and good that she's after these critters. However, she's digging holes under and into my compost piles, strewing uncomposted whatnot around the yard; she's dug holes in my lawn (why that has anything to do with rodents, I don't know--they don't look like gopher-chasing holes); she's trompled entire flats of (expensive) unplanted 6-packs of flowers, she's toppled and broken flowerpots and dumped planted flowers out onto the ground; today she ripped apart the (probably expensive) covering holding the insulation in place around the pipes and wires that run between my hot tub and its pump/heater. I managed to block that off (I hope), but I don't know where next she'll strike.

I *was* happy to see the rodents go, but the price is getting a little steep--