Every morning our canine alarm system alerts us to the approach of an intruder. You’d think the dogs would get used to seeing Janet, the neighbor lady who gets in a healthy walk down our road to start her day. Our dogs consider the whole road “their” territory and they have taken exception to Janet’s infringement…until she started toting dog biscuits in her pockets. Now they are barking out of sheer glee to welcome her, I think. After a moment’s meet-and-greet, they return to the house and she resumes her walk. Actually, she never stops walking.

Our dogs were already addicted to doggie treats. We keep a bag of biscuits in the kitchen cabinet below the sink. The first thing we do in the mornings is pass out dog biscuits to the crew on the back porch. They insist on it. They gather at the back door, smiling and wagging and jumping and scratching until Rupert goes out to distribute the munchies.

Dog biscuits are relatively cheap when you buy them in bulk, and they do make our dogs happy. Also, we have found, they make mice happy.

One night I heard something inside the biscuit bag under the sink.

“Rupert, there’s a mouse in the dog biscuits,” I helpfully pointed out.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

From time to time I have to remind Rupert that one of his husbandly roles is that of household exterminator.

“Get rid of it,” I said.

By the time he opened the cabinet and grabbed the bag, the mouse had vamoosed.

He dutifully dusted off the mousetrap and prepared it with his bait of choice: peanut butter.

The next day the critter met his fate when he returned to find the biscuits were now in a mouse-proof bucket, but a tasty treat had been left out just for him.

Eventually we trapped a whole family of mice. They just kept coming.

Every time we asked, “where is the cat?”

That would be Margaret Jane, the calico queen who sits in Rupert’s lap each night to get a spoonful of yogurt.

She keeps our dogs at bay, but she is worthless as a mouser.

One night after we thought we’d trapped the last of the mouse family, Margaret woke us up playing with something in our bedroom.  She was having fun chasing something. It was 3 a.m. and I was too tired to care. I thought it was probably the lizard which had slipped in the day air conditioner installer came.

The next morning I went to take my shower. There in my bathtub was A MOUSE. A live mouse. Looking at me.

I summoned the exterminator.

“Get the cat,” he helpfully suggested.

I scooped up Margaret, threw her in the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind her.

“Meow,” she said.

Rupert opened the door and she ran out. He put her back, this time into the bathtub with her prey.

She ran out.

“She’s scared of that mouse,” he said.

Ever resourceful, he grabbed an empty plastic coffee container (with a lid) and disappeared into my bathroom. Seconds later he released the mouse into the backyard, where it was quickly pursued and caught by Lulu the fox terrier who loves to hunt varmints.

The cat just sat there, looking bored and not a bit interested in earning her keep.