mouse babies..

today naughty badger caught a mouse...
i know when he has a prisoner within his jaws as he does a particular dance..
a kinda jaunty and pleased as punch jig..
i screamed ...
he stopped dead in his tracks..
i screamed "drop"...
he opened his mouth and deposited a very disgruntled mouse...

now
before anyone marvels at my amazing dog training skills please let it be known that badger the bandit is the only one of our dogs that listens to us..
all the others would have seen that they were rumbled and swallowed the poor mouse whole..
in one single gulp..

but badger, thankfully, duly dropped his recently acquired treasure and came and sat by my side with a very sorrowful face..

mousie was scooped up, checked for wounds, declared fit and well a little while later and released in to the safety of our veggie garden, a part of the garden that hounds are not allowed...

little were we to know that mousie was a mama mouse and had been cruelly torn from her nest of babies :(
it is unusual for mouse babies this late in the year..
she must have been caught unaware..
these things happen...

we only realised when once again badger was doing his famous jig, no doubt thinking we had placed mousie back in to the nest in order for him to find it again...

what a great game of mouse hide and seek..
he was a very happy lad...

once again he was made to drop his loot and we confined him to the house whilst we checked the area he had been dancing gaily around..
one beautiful mouse nest in the long grass verge..
six tiny mouse babies found after much searching...
all scattered around the nest area, all huddled and looking confused and very worried...

we popped them all in a box with the lining from their nest and popped in to the veggie garden in the vain hope that we would find mama mouse where we had left her so we could reunite her with her babes..

sadly not..

the end of this tale of whippety jigs is however a good one..

all six babies are fit and well and now in the very capable hands of our local and totally brilliant SSPCA centre..
they will keep in touch and let us know when our mouse team is ready for release...

much to badgers dismay they will not be released here...

put your dancing shoes away lad...

t x