We just had a fun episode of Chipmunk Herding, with help from Miss Sophie! I knew that chipmunk was still in the house (it’s been a week!) because I heard him a couple of times yesterday. Today Miss Sophie found him. We had the doors open for him and every fifteen minutes or so, she’d come in and find him and chase him around.
After a while, we thought it wasn’t very nice or productive to let her do the herding, so we took up the hunt too. While the chipmunk was probably scared out of his wits, I have to say for us…it was kind of fun. I get where Miss Sophie’s coming from now. The chipmunk ran and leapt and dove and hid (we did feel sorry for him, but it was still pretty funny). At one point he was on one arm of our big blue chair and Miss Sophie was on the other and they were having a stare-down. He gave in first and made a leap for the bookcase where she couldn’t quite get him.
I know chipmunks have tiny brains, but he was so close to being free so many times I started to wonder if he was an acorn short of a bushel. He got close to the door twice, but once he almost ran right into Mr. Fatboy who just looked at him like, “Hey.” and the other time, Miss Sophie was right behind him so he dove for cover right before he got outside. We would’ve grabbed her, but he didn’t know that.
Finally he ran in the bathroom and Victor ran in after him and slammed the door. I could hear Victor in there scuffle, scuffle, laugh, scuffle, yell, laugh, %$%^&, scuffle, “I got him!” He had him in a five gallon bucket we use to fill the humidifier. Victor comes walking out with the bucket, very proud of himself.
I start yelling, “He’s going to jump!”
Victor says, “Ahh he can’t get out.” but the chipmunk was flying out of the bucket as he spoke.
Luckily we were right in front of the door and out he went. But he raced across the porch and almost ran in the kitchen door which we also had open! Luckily, he was not distracted by the promise of more free cat food and kept going. I had to run after him to make sure our other cat, Grinder, wasn’t anywhere around. He finally got away. Poor thing. But it was pretty funny!
We are thinking of ordering tiny t-shirts that say, “I survived Chez Gatos” and giving them out as souvenirs to the many chipmunks who spend their holidays in our house.
*Chez Gatos is the nickname of our homestead.
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