Home of the Snarkmaiden

Tonight Shoobie was going completely bonkers at the pile of miscellanea in the back corner of my office closet. Scratching, digging, barking, snorking and chuckling to himself in that agitated way he has when he's really enjoying himself, and absolutely determinedly frantic to get at the kipple-blocked far back.

Now, of an evening Shoobie sometimes does get charmingly feisty with the natural rubber ball that is roughly the size of his skull, pouncing upon it with cries of snorkulous glee and running around the living room with it, skittering and prancing and chortling like the happy miser he is, but these moods are a passing thing. With the closet, Shoobie was firm, Shoobie was resolute. Shoobie Would Not Give Up. And I've learned to attend to Shoobie's will-of-iron moods. They typically mean something. So I got up and moved aside the picture frames and the canvas panels and the rubber boots and so forth so he could get at the very backity back of the closet.

He plunged into the gap like the kibble-burning, rotund missile he is. And, true to type, was back out in moments with yet another dead rat, this one in full rigor, locked in his tiny little vise-like jaw, snork-snork-snorking the Shoobie Victory Chorus and flying the grizzled and stringy Shoobie Victory Pennant high. He ran off with his prize to the dog bed in the living room where he was obviously prepared to defend it to the death from all comers. Sigh.

On the plus side, Shoobie discovering the corpse now means it didn't have a chance to get ripe and stinky back there. And, in the department of useful information, tonight I learned that freeze-dried chicken breast is even more interesting than dead rat, at least for long enough for me to bag up the dead rat and toss it in the trash. On the downside, Someone is getting a mite too fond of dumping her spare cadavers in my closet.

And now the Mighty Shoob has been rewarded with pettings and praisings, and consoled for the loss of his fine rat with beef stick, and after a thorough search of all the places someone may have re-hidden a dead rat, he is snoring contentedly on the rug at my feet. Meanwhile, the probable cause of all this sudden influx of dead rat is washing her paws in my recliner pretending none of this has anything to do with her. Good thing it's getting close to closed windows season. I don't like taking this skeletons-in-the-closet business too literally, even at Hallowe'en.

As of tonight, I have decided that the most appropriate collective noun for an assemblage of miscellaneous house pets is "a complication". You can roll your own examples, I'm sure, but this evening when I let out the dogs for one final bio break before I go to bed, there was a very large, quite fresh but wholly dead rat lovingly laid out on the back door mat. No doubt this is why Shoobie had been hanging out by the back door with such determined interest. But since both dogs pass the rat by as they dash out into the yard I figure I'm safe in waiting until the dogs are back in before disposing of the corpse. Ah, but no.

Neither dog was apparently that interested in peeing, so they both turn around to head back toward the house almost immediately, and I'm figuring I'll grab a plastic bag to pick up the rat with as soon as they're back in the kitchen. But no. Never discount Shoobie's prowess as a serious ratter. As Shoobie gets to the open door, I can practically see the exclamation point go off above his head. He spots the rat, and his whole stout little body vibrates with joy. Wagging his tail in majestic triumph, he grabs the corpse, and with head held high, marches proudly into the kitchen with a dead rat almost as big as his head and several times larger than his dinky little snout clenched firmly between his teeth. Because Shoobie has something, and she does not, Kaylee is now of course Very Interested and she dashes in after him, looming over him and making little sallies to take the rat away.

Shoobie is having none of it. He skitters aside and goes pitter-pattering off into the living room, ridiculous feathery tail curled high over his back like a warlord's banner. Shoobie is mighty. Shoobie is great. Shoobie has the kill, and he's damned if anyone will take his trophy from him now, however ill-gotten. (This is all so very different from when Shoob has a ball -- the minute Kaylee gets interested in a ball Shoobie has been playing with, he drops it and feigns complete disinterest. It's a question of picking your battles, I guess.)

I grab a plastic bag from the recycling dispenser beside the kitchen door to collect the rat with, and follow a distant third. My first two or three sallies to even grab hold of the rat fail, as Shoobie is dodging all malefactors, and every time I try to get a grip on Shoobie, there's Kaylee worming in trying to get her share of whatever fun is to be had. I finally manage to send Kaylee away, corner Shoobie in the dog bed, and manage to get a proper grip on the rat. And also on the deceased rodent. Shoobie will. Not. Let. Go. People will tell you about the stubbornness of bully breed dogs when they have a grip. Hah! Bully dogs are easy. It's the chihuahuas that will out-stubborn a starfish. I gave up trying to wrest if from him since I didn't really want to have to clean splattered rat guts off the oak floor should the corpse fail before Shoobie's will did.

After a couple more rounds of foolishness, finally I managed to get the rat, not by dint of prying it out of Shoobie's jaws but solely because he decided that the rat really was dead after all, and therefore not that interesting.

So yeah. A dog is just a dog, a cat is just a cat, but when they come in groups, they are a complication.


Kaylee and Shoobie share a rat-free moment