Old Pal..

We have a Rat Terrier and he didn't do his job! "Pal" is 16 years old and deaf. His energy is high when outdoors, but he sleeps for hours and hours on "his" couch in the living room. He tells us when it it time to eat by waking up and staring. He wanders back and forth from the Mister to the back door when his out time is pushing. BUT, he is not doing his job. He is not finding the critters outdoors, both above and underground, that he is bred to locate and remove. If one were indoors he would ferret it out as he did when we had an invasion of mice so many years ago. 

It was a big surprise to find this critter in the MOUSE trap that is set by the back door, behind a step stool so the terrier wouldn't set it off. It is a FIRST. We have not ever caught one before. There is absolutely nothing, nothing at all around the cabin that we know of, that would attract these. We don't have a compost pile. We don't throw peelings or anything out on the ground.  Maybe he was looking for a warm winter shelter? We missed his demise by minutes as this picture is NOT altered. 

The poop scoop, formerly an old coal scoop, measures 4 inches across by 7 inches long, not including handle.  We wonder where all the feral cats that live in the woodlands here were, when this guy was wandering through.