Hunting in the Moonlight Hours

There has been this rat in the barn evading me for days.  I first saw it a week or so ago eating some scraps my aunt had given me for the pigs.  A trap was set with peanut butter... to no avail.  Next, the trap was set with chocolate cake.  The dirty bugger managed to eat the cake, set off the trap and not get caught! Every time the dogs are in the barn, they run up and down the stairs sniffing all the corners, digging here and there and turning up nothing.  My dogs are all experienced mousers.  Much more adept than my 17 pound cat who at this moment lays on my bed licking his arse instead of doing what cats are supposed to do.

Anyway.  After coming home from our Monday Town Day, I donned my headlamp and headed to the barn to close everything up.  Two beady little eyes flashed at me from the rafters above the pigs' pen.  I grabbed my pitch fork(I don't screw around!) and lunged at it.  It scrabbled away along the wall with me and three dogs on its tail.  It was perched above my head on a ledge and I swung at it with my fork.  All I could see were its flashing eyes sailing through the bloody air at my face!  I might have let out a girly scream at that point before yelling, "GET THE MOUSE!" (These are Alberta dogs, they don't know the word 'rat' so the command is 'mouse.')

The rat in question managed to disappear and the dogs proceeded to spend the next half hour digging like maniacs under one of the feeder boxes.

Indi did most of the digging while Zama did a lot of listening and Bjorn did a lot of standing around.

Zama taking a turn at digging

Thinking there was no chance they would catch the devious rodent, I called them off to head in the house.  Indi headed into the opposite corner of the barn and started frantically sniffing under some wood.  I managed to get my fork underneath and lift it up(no way was I using my hands lest a rodent fly at my face again!) and Indi flushed the bloody creature out!  There was a great commotion as all three dogs went after it and who do you think got the trophy?  Bjorn.  He who stood around doing nothing!  He trotted off into the darkness with his squeaking prize and two furious hard working dogs trailing after him.

Zama brought it to me to show me what she'd done after it was thoroughly dead.  One very slobbery bedraggled rat.

Super gross.