The City Squirrel

Saturday morning I spent some time downtown at Grace. Then I came home. In the afternoon I walked into the garage to find a grey squirrel pulling on the lid to open the metal trashcan where I keep the black oil sunflower seeds for the bird feeders. It didn't run off until I was quite close.

How odd, with my dogs, all of our squirrels keep as close to the trees as possible.

Later on, Rob said he kept chasing the dogs off my NEW car. They were standing on it!

Sunday morning at (0530!) the dogs just have to go out. I go back to bed, please let me sleep! But they won't stop barking, so back in they come.

Try to get some sleep. They won't settle down! Out they go, and now I am wearing my glasses so I can see what is going on. They made a beeline for my car and are chewing(!) on the bumper and barking non-stop. I look under the hood. nothing. I get a screwdriver to remove the scrape plate, still nothing.

I take them inside, and make breakfast. No sleeping in here. Dogs are still going crazy, but I won't let them out. I am sure it is because of whatever it is, I assume a cat, is still bothering them. Kalit, apparently just needed to go potty, and I wasn't letting him out. Time to clean up the poop! More fun!

About 0900, we let them out again and they will not leave my car alone! So Rob looks under the hood while I open up the scrape plate, and a grey squirrel flies out at Rob! Instead of making a dash for the trees (which are VERY close) he runs to the house, farther away, and up the side of the stucco!

We spent a good 10 minutes encouraging the dogs to chase him, and he is always trying to get into the house. Finally, he goes around the back and we lose him. I quickly fill the bird feeders to keep him out back. The dogs enjoyed 3 hours of sniffing and circling the house, but eventually I saw him on a bird feeder. I know it was him, because our squirrels are black or tan-ish, and he was quite grey.

Clearly, this squirrel did not belong in the country. Thinking the house is safety! Ha! Hopefully the local residents teach him some new tricks before the dogs get him. Smart enough to try and pull the lid off the metal trash can, he should learn quickly. But my week old car is scratched to shit! Roar!