Who needs an exterminator?

Since I have no children to write funny, heartwarming posts about I decided to share a story about my pets. I have two dogs, Beaker and Penny (Jack Russell Terriers) and two cats, Oscar and Blue. Oscar used to be an indoor only cat but over the past few years he's become accustomed to going outside as he pleases. About two years ago I adopted Blue from a rescue and spends all of his time outside. He doesn't like our dogs...at all.


This is Blue. Doesn't he just look evil? He's not much of a people person. He wouldn't let me pet him for the longest time.

We used to live in the city (Baltimore) and like most cities, Baltimore has some serious city rats. We never had them in our house but if you were outside at night and stood still you could hear and sometimes see them running around the back alley. Penny (the little dog, mind you) went crazy for those rats. During our year and a half there she killed three of them (that we know of). And they were almost as big as her. Beaker on the other hand, was afraid of them.


One of Penny's kills.

Since moving to the suburbs we don't see rats anymore. We have a new rodent. The Vole. It looks like a little mouse and lives underground leaving annoying tunnles under the grass. Penny must either smell or hear the little things under the ground and then she proceeds to dig up the tunnels.


Said tunnel digging.

So far, she's not been able to catch one the little critters. Until this weekend. As I was turning off the light in the living room to go to bed, what did I see on the rug? Why, it was a dead vole. A little present from Penny to me. How sweet. At least it wasn't bloody and disemboweled like the rats were. Or like the ones that Blue usually leaves us.

Which brings us to today. Blue loves living here. He has plenty of places to go and hunt. When he's not hunting, he lounges on our front porch, pondering his next kill. I've seen him crunching on vole's heads (the skull makes an interesting crunching sound) before and have come across a dead one here and there. But today as I was walking outside to my car I noticed a something in the walkway. It was a vole. Well....half of one anyway.


Not too gross. But if you looked at the other side...


Now you can truly see that it's just a half. Poor thing. I guess Blue wasn't that hungry.

So, even though I don't have a funny poop story (at least not about my own kids but I do work with 12 two year olds so I do have funny poop stories) I do have funny half-vole stories.