Graham Denby: Tracking down a rat!

Jan 13 2010 by Graham Denby

If she makes a similar fuss around a barn pallet stacked with bales of hay, winter fodder for the horses, we know we have unwelcome visitors. If she scrambles about on our (outside) firewood stack sniffing and scrabbling about, we know nesting is in progress.

All these hiding places have one thing in common: they are very hard to expose. But we never doubt Bom’s nose. When we eventually get to the point of exposing the ‘lodger’ we lift the last pallet or log (trousers tucked inside socks lads, I’ve heard the horror stories) and then a deadly chase game of ‘Dog and Rodent’ immediately gets under way, very frantic and rather short lived, literally! Bom is wicked at it.

As regards the unwanted car passenger, I popped the bonnet but asked Ruth to open it. Well, she does know which way to slide the lever and have you seen the size of the front teeth...not on our lass, the rat’s!

Peering in carefully I saw the end of a long tail disappear down behind the starter motor and I couldn’t ‘persuade’ it to drop to the floor by broddling around...well, would you with Bom circling the car like a Great White around a swimmer? Eventually I got the keys and set off with the car, with more of a jolt with normal, and down and out it popped on to the drive...then about five seconds later it popped off altogether...grrrr, gnash!

I don’t want to give the impression we’re infested, far from it, but we are slap bang in the country here and we must look like a new Tesco to our furry fiends. Ah well, Bom gets more fun out of it than we have lately from the TV ...

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