the great chipmunk detective

a non-baby post for your amusement...

as you know, quentin, the cat, all 4 dogs, and i are staying at my parents' house while we wait to move in to our new boston house. my parents live in a wooded area and have a huge fenced in backyard that the dogs love. our dog abby really loves it because the dog door from the house gives her unrestricted on-demand access to the outdoors. she loves to be out there sniffing, and only comes in to get a drink of water and make sure no one in the house is eating steak or something like that.

all day monday, abby was outside. but instead of her usual patrolling of the yard, she was OBSESSED with the trailer hitch that my parents have to haul their car behind their rv. she was sniffing circles around it, trying to dig under it, scratching at it, etc. we thought maybe there was a chipmunk or mole hole near by that she was trying to infiltrate. or that the chipmunks were stealing tomatoes from the garden and abby was trying to sniff them back. (abby has fallen in love with fresh from the garden veggies of all kinds.)

after like 4 hours of her pacing out there, i decided to go check out what was so darn fascinating. i watched her circle the hitch and then try to gnaw on the steel center beam. when she started trying to get inside the hitch i finally figured it out. i heard squeaking. there was a chipmunk (likely, but could have been mouse) stuck in the center beam of the hitch. abby is sniffed it out and was trying to coax it out of the hitch and into her mouth. not sure if it couldn't, or just wouldn't come out, but that little squeaker was not budging.

my mom came outside to see what all the drama was. with her help (and now the help of 4 more hounds), we identified two spots where the little bugger could have gotten in and should theoretically be able to escape from. but we couldn't coax it out either, not with all the hounds around.

so when my dad got home, he got involved in the rescue. if there's one thing my dad loves, it's teaching rodents lessons. he had the great idea to prop the (really heavy) hitch on its side with a random piece of metal so that the center beam where the chipmunk was hiding would be slanted upward (see picture.) he then got the garden hose and shoved it in one of the escape holes mom and i had found, leaving chipper no other option but to run for the hills out the other end. the hose was then turned on and the remaining space around it plugged up with a plastic bag so that the beam would start to fill with water and push the critter upwards and onwards.

this is the point where i started worrying about the darwin awards, or at a minimum being that really sad but funny news story posted on the cnn.com front page. i could just see it - man, wife, daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and several hounds killed in tragic chipmunk rescue. i made jeremy take quentin inside - the boy should not have to bear witness to the death of his family at the hands of a rodent. he also corralled all the hounds and got them inside too.

the water was a good idea - it got the critter right to the very end of the beam. it was getting dark at this point, and there are no lights by the hitch, but we could see its beady little eyes.

giving up of the flush it out approach, dad decided to drop the hitch back down flat on the ground - thinking the impact might scare the little bugger out. that hitch is heavy so it hit the ground hard with an intense thud. but the chipmunk did not budge.

jeremy heard the crash from inside and came running out to make sure we were all ok. but he forgot about the dogs so the whole pack came running straight towards the hitch. and that's what did it. the now soaked chipmunk came flying out of the hitch and ran straight into the wood pile to avoid the hounds. he resisted abby's prodding, a thorough soaking slash near drowning, and a massive drop to the ground but the sound of a pack of hungry hounds was enough to make him throw in the towel.

bet he never goes in the hitch again. rodent lesson learned. poor abby has been depressed since - she worked all day for the chipmunk and never got a taste.