[Dailydrool] Mice: the sequel

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

I think it takes a person of much, much sterner stuff than me to use  
glue boards to catch mice. I did it once and swore never again. I  
hadn't realized the glue board doesn't kill the mouse, it just traps  
the mouse, which remains panicked and frantic until it's killed or  
dies of fright on its own. I was so appalled by the whole thing that  
for the next week I'd feel shaky all over again whenever I thought of  
it.

Since that awful episode, I've used poison (when I was dog-less),  
snap traps, and shock-to-kill traps. I prefer the latter. They cost  
about $25 each at Home Depot, but the little mouse enters and is  
instantly (and hopefully painlessly) zapped to death by an electric  
shock generated by AA batteries. I think those traps are the most  
humane way of getting rid of mice. Snap traps don't always snap on  
the mouse, or sometimes they'll snap on body parts that leave the  
mouse still alive, frightened, and in great pain. Poison is not only  
an awful way to go, but it can also let the mouse take other animals  
with it when it dies or shortly thereafter.

We experimented with poison when we lived in a porous 200-year-old  
stone farmhouse in the middle of a field. All seemed to go well. The  
mice would come up from under the stove, sit in the poison box, and  
munch away. Then came the day when we moved and took out all the  
furniture. We found not only skeletons of long-poisoned mice (one was  
a momma mouse draped protectively over her nest of babies where the  
refrigerator had been) but also little caches of poison under and  
behind furniture. One cache was stored between the double box springs  
of a bed we had on the floor. Another was under the rug in the bathroom.

I've had ten or eleven pet rats in my adulthood. I'll let them run  
around loose in my office while I work, which has given me plenty of  
opportunity to see that they're just like those farmhouse mice.  
They'll make trip after trip from the food bowl in their cage to  
wherever it is in my office they've decided to stash the food for  
later consumption. Only in the case of the farmhouse mice, they never  
got the chance to eat from their carefully laid-up storehouses.

So between the farmhouse mice and my pet rats, I've realized that  
poison is doubly dangerous. It can affect whatever animal gets hold  
of the rodent who died from the poison--and it can end up at clear  
the other end of the house from the poison box without anyone knowing  
but the household pets. This is why I refuse to let our exterminator  
put poison down in our unfinished basement where the dogs never go.  
The poison may start out in the basement, but those mice could very  
easily move some of it to a part of the house the dogs have access to  
and I wouldn't know until the dogs started getting sick.

On a somewhat different topic, our Elsinore and young Charlie are  
hosting another extended slumber party for their basset friend Owen.  
We were over at Owen's house last night to watch more "True Blood"  
episodes with Jennifer on her new, really big tv. Owen can tell when  
we're about ready to leave, and he did what he always does at that  
point in our visit. Before we even looked as if we were going to get  
up, he planted himself in front of Jennifer's chair, turned a pair of  
liquid brown eyes on her, and hopefully wagged his tail. He was very  
obviously asking if he could come home with us. I told him he was  
welcome to if his mom said it was okay. It took some whining, butt  
wiggling, and nudging, but she finally told him he could. Then he  
danced all over the living room while she got some food for him and  
found his leash. I'm not sure how long he'll be here, maybe until  
Friday, but he's having a wonderful time. His room (the travel crate)  
is all set up, and he's on his favorite bed. Elsinore and young  
Charlie seem happy for the diversion, too, especially since it's too  
cold to be outside for long these days.

Elizabeth