Jack hunts all night and then sleeps on our bed during the day. When she is standing on me in morning purring furiously and rubbing, I try not to think about where else that face has been.

I thought that was weird until I realized the individual oatmeal packets had holes in them and oatmeal was missing.

“But we can’t have mice,” I think. “I haven’t seen any poop around the oatmeal boxes or on the counters.” Then I spot one little dropping. This is very odd, because usually mice poop every couples inches like fertilizer spreaders.

How in the world did we get the most sneaky mouse ever? We live in a house that has two cats and two dogs. Then I realized what the problem is.

Jasper is old and has cheese for brains. He saw a mouse once, looked at it, gently patty pawed it, and walked away. Besides, he sleeps all day except for when he is wandering around the house in an old man daze because he forgot why he went outside.

You would think our vicious one eyed Jack cat would feel insulted by an intruder in her house. Outside she litters the ground with dead varmints. When you walk out the back door in the morning, sometimes you have to do a funny dance to avoid stepping on any rodent bodies. One of us will finally get a shovel, line the bodies up like cord wood, and bring them out to the field for a proper burial. Unfortunately, Jack sleeps so hard when she’s indoors that the house could probably burn down around her and she wouldn’t notice. You could play the drums by her ear and she would barely open her eye to look at you.

My dog Edgar is no help because I don’t think he could see a mouse anyway.

Even if he could see a mouse he is too obsessed with making sure he is with me at all times. I believe he considers looking after me a full time job.

Aggie’s breeder told us they are great varmint dogs out in the field. But unless this mouse has a pet dog that it takes for walks, drives a UPS truck, or triggers any of her other stranger danger alerts, I guess she can’t be counted on for a mouse hunt.

Mostly I think Aggie is sleeping when the mouse is active. Everyone knows UPS vans don’t deliver at night. She must let down her guard while she protects the woodstove and lets the mouse do a polka dance on my counters.

Thunk

Aggie is very enthusiastic about her job and is on call 24 hours a day. Within seconds of impact (or a foot tapping), she will be on the scene to investigate. If she had her way, our compost pile would be a lonely place–not one scrap would ever reach it.

For the life of him, Edgar can’t figure out why Aggie is eating all that green stuff. But hey, if she likes collard greens, then he should like collard greens. He forces himself to chew and swallow a leaf with a morose look on his face. An eating competition then commences, with Aggie eating as much as she can possibly fit in her stomach, and Edgar slowly but determinedly trying to keep up the pace. Eventually Edgar gives up and collapses in the corner.

Aggie eats until she can eat no more. Twenty minutes later, she is back for a topping off. Hmm, that’s a lot of fiber. We may need to take the dogs out again tonight …

I was sleeping you moron. Go away.

BUT JACK JACK!! Okay fine, I’ll stop pestering you.

Besides doing well in the duck herding, she also took the Canine Good Citizen test. Much to our surprise she passed the test. Who would have thought our little puppy would have so much talent inside her.

Jasper, meanwhile, was taking a snooze. He really has no interest in the outdoors. A squirrel could come up and punch him in the nose and he would just stare at it blankly.