How Far Would YOU Go?
What do you get when you mix cheese, peanut butter and cereal? It sounds like one of those revolting DIY snacks of the '70s, right? "Cheesy Peanut Toasties" or some such dreck. Actually, it's rat bait. You see, we bought a trap.
The dogs are showing every sign of being good terriers. They love to dig, they love to rip into things, they're playful and inquisitive and tireless. They're also completely incurious about the entire rodent world. They couldn't care less about dirt or leaves. They want to dig in the blankets in their doghouse, or in the carpet lining the little box they like to hide in. They completely dominate the stuffed wombat and hedgehog (the closest thing the pet store sells to stuffed rat toys) and the stuffed dodecahedron - they gutted that poor thing. But when faced with an actual rat, they were less than eager.
So, we decided that the problem was just that they haven't been introduced under the right circumstances. The right circumstances involve a large box of dirt, a rat, and a little dog. We've got the large box of dirt (a retired cold frame full of old potting soil), we've got the little dogs. Now, we just need a live rat.
This bad boy is going to give it to us. The directions say that rats love peanuts, cheese and cereal. Odd, it says nothing about chicken feed or eggs. Anyway, we mixed up a smelly mess of bait and smeared it on the bait tray of the trap, placing it near our compost bin. It's as close as we come to opening a restaurant for the little dears.
DAY 1: I'd put a lot of crumbly bait on the tray, and about half of it is gone, but the trap isn't sprung.
DAY 2: All the bait is gone, and the trap still isn't sprung. I blame the Pirate for not setting it correctly.
DAY 3: This time *I* set the trap, and I use an actual egg. Alas, by morning it's still there. Midway through the day, the Pirate takes the egg away thinking that he doesn't want to leave it where it will spoil, because the rats won't want a spoiled egg. Wait a minute - has he been living with the same rats I have? The ones who are tunneling through a foot of chicken droppings?
DAY 4: I mix more peanut butter into the mess to make it stickier. We've decided that the reason the trap hasn't been sprung is because the bait wasn't sticky enough to make the rats touch the tray, thus tripping the trap. Come morning, half the bait is again gone, and the trap is unsprung.
DAY 5: We put nothing out. Partly because our power went out and we had other things to attend to, partly because we're looking at ourselves and saying "We're mixing it up. We're giving those rats a sense of false security. Yeah. That's what we're doing. It's all part of our plan." We say this to ourselves over and over again, even when we're alone. It's getting that bad.
DAY 6: I dropped the only egg the hens managed to lay today. Luckily, very fresh eggs aren't nearly as liquid as older ones, so it retained its integrity nicely as I carried it to the trap and lovingly laid it on the bait tray. Morning will tell us whether this had its intended effect.
In the meantime, all of this is in aid of teaching these dogs to get happy about hunting rats. Because really, that's what it's all about. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to despair of ever turning this pair of pampered pooches into fearless hunters:
The dogs are showing every sign of being good terriers. They love to dig, they love to rip into things, they're playful and inquisitive and tireless. They're also completely incurious about the entire rodent world. They couldn't care less about dirt or leaves. They want to dig in the blankets in their doghouse, or in the carpet lining the little box they like to hide in. They completely dominate the stuffed wombat and hedgehog (the closest thing the pet store sells to stuffed rat toys) and the stuffed dodecahedron - they gutted that poor thing. But when faced with an actual rat, they were less than eager.
So, we decided that the problem was just that they haven't been introduced under the right circumstances. The right circumstances involve a large box of dirt, a rat, and a little dog. We've got the large box of dirt (a retired cold frame full of old potting soil), we've got the little dogs. Now, we just need a live rat.
This bad boy is going to give it to us. The directions say that rats love peanuts, cheese and cereal. Odd, it says nothing about chicken feed or eggs. Anyway, we mixed up a smelly mess of bait and smeared it on the bait tray of the trap, placing it near our compost bin. It's as close as we come to opening a restaurant for the little dears.
DAY 1: I'd put a lot of crumbly bait on the tray, and about half of it is gone, but the trap isn't sprung.
DAY 2: All the bait is gone, and the trap still isn't sprung. I blame the Pirate for not setting it correctly.
DAY 3: This time *I* set the trap, and I use an actual egg. Alas, by morning it's still there. Midway through the day, the Pirate takes the egg away thinking that he doesn't want to leave it where it will spoil, because the rats won't want a spoiled egg. Wait a minute - has he been living with the same rats I have? The ones who are tunneling through a foot of chicken droppings?
DAY 4: I mix more peanut butter into the mess to make it stickier. We've decided that the reason the trap hasn't been sprung is because the bait wasn't sticky enough to make the rats touch the tray, thus tripping the trap. Come morning, half the bait is again gone, and the trap is unsprung.
DAY 5: We put nothing out. Partly because our power went out and we had other things to attend to, partly because we're looking at ourselves and saying "We're mixing it up. We're giving those rats a sense of false security. Yeah. That's what we're doing. It's all part of our plan." We say this to ourselves over and over again, even when we're alone. It's getting that bad.
DAY 6: I dropped the only egg the hens managed to lay today. Luckily, very fresh eggs aren't nearly as liquid as older ones, so it retained its integrity nicely as I carried it to the trap and lovingly laid it on the bait tray. Morning will tell us whether this had its intended effect.
In the meantime, all of this is in aid of teaching these dogs to get happy about hunting rats. Because really, that's what it's all about. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to despair of ever turning this pair of pampered pooches into fearless hunters:
posted by Aoibheall | 10:22 PM
2 Comments:
Those dogs are sliding by on their utter cuteness!
Dunno if this will help, but my dad told me once to put the trap against a wall (the long way), because rats like to feel their way along a wall with their whiskers. If the trap is lined up with the wall, they're more likely to go in.
i'm officially in love with the little grey one (esme?). if i ever decide to commit to another dog, i'll be asking you for the name of her breeder.
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