Spring Rodents

There's just something about spring-time that makes a dog want to bestow upon his people a dead rodent.

My dog, usually so cute and loving, has begun to think of dead rodents as flowers. He offers them to me as if they were a vase of red roses.

When he is super proud of himself he prances around as if he were a show horse. When I saw him prancing back and forth across the garage floor, I smiled and thought upon the adorableness of my dog. But upon closer inspection, I was bothered. Something identical to a limp tail was dangling from his mouth. Filled with disgust I shouted at him to, "GROSS DROP IT GROSS GROSS GROSS!!!" He complied immediately and respectfully and proudly placed a very sad baby squirrel at my feet.

After shouting at the sky, wringing my hands in despair, and walking in aimless circles looking for help, I decided to use the push broom while holding the tip top of the handle to gently push the poor, dear, creature out of the garage and into the grass. Which I did. With my eyes closed. Tight.

I immediately went into the house and took a scalding shower which did not remove the gross from my memory. But, feeling assured that I was free of dead rodent germs, I resumed normal life. But then normal life dropped me like a hot potato.

Later in the afternoon, I opened the screen door that leads from the garage to the house and almost fell over. Strewn across the floor was a carpet of dead rodents. Okay, maybe not a carpet, but there were several. All dead.

In shock, I stood with my mouth agape while my dog approached in his proudest prance, kneeled, and placed his head on my feet.  If my garage floor had, in fact, been strewn with red roses, it would have been one of the sweetest highlights of my life.

However, it just wasn't.