I should know better

There is always an ongoing rodent problem here. The problem is fieldmice - little tan and white people with huge black eyes, who see this isolated cottage in winter as the Promised Land, full of milk and honey.....well, at least dogfood and other dry goods. And when the weather gets chilly, somehow they find their way in.

Actually, not so much this winter, as the cold spell came on so suddenly and was so severe that I guess it caught most of them before they could put their emigration plans into effect.

So it was quite a surprise when the other evening one wandered out into the middle of the floor, and paused to think.

All the dogs were asleep, except Shelby.

Now Shelby is a Chin. He has never seen himself as a mighty hunter, as the Paps do. But he does pride himself on having a supremely enquiring mind. He decided to inspect the mouse.

He walked over, bent down, and put his great flat face next to its tiny one.

I have no idea what the mouse thought. It didn`t move. It was either paralysed with fear, or could make no sense at all of the huge black and white apparition looming over it like the full moon. It just sat there, a target for some serious heavy sniffing and eye-rolling, as Shelby assessed it.

I don`t know how long this mutual appreciation would have gone on - but then Truly woke up.

Truly has no pretensions to be a great seeker after knowledge. She is a Papillon and therefore she knows it all already. She spotted the mouse. She knows all about mice. Mice are crunchy. She shot across the floor like a rocket, and the mouse, at last in a situation it understood only too well, legged it under a bookcase. Followed much scraping and heavy sniffing, as the other Paps woke and joined her in trying to get under the bookcase.

Shelby stood back and watched. Clearly he was busy assimilating what he had learned. You could see the wheels going round .......

"File under `Fieldmouse`"