All Hostile Yard Rodents, Turn To The Right

It occurred to me the other day that perhaps I’m not as prepared for Nature as I thought.

I was born and raised in New York City, where contact with other carbon-based life forms was limited, animalistically-speaking, to leashed dogs and the occasional squirrel or pigeon.   I also went to high school in a particularly dangerous part of the Bronx (school song:  ”Look Out!  A Mugger!”), where squirrels and pigeons were smart enough to maintain a polite distance from the human residents, mainly so as not to disturb the drive-by shootings.

When we moved to New Jersey to raise our kids, I had this city-slicker fantasy that I would finally get to commune with Nature and befriend all of the charming woodland animals that scampered about my property.  My kids and I would frolic with the birds, and the deer, and the antelope, and the carp, and whatever else came our way, and they would sing a charming woodland animal song to me as I scattered woodland animal food for them, just like in a Disney cartoon, which clearly shows you how demented I had become.

Obviously, none of this ever happened.  The birds were more concerned with pooping on my outdoor furniture than singing, and the deer were much more interested in eating my flowers than frolicking.   This disappointed me, but it had no real impact on my life until the day my dog had a showdown with Cujo, the Hostile Yard Rodent.

Jade is a Border Terrier, a quirky, happy-go-lucky breed, and I like to think of her as the Roberto Benigni of dogs (“I luff evry-BAHDY!”)  She’s never met a human or an animal she didn’t like, so when she woke from her afternoon nap in our sunny yard and saw another four-legged being standing over her, she naturally came to the conclusion that it had come to play.  I did not become involved in the game until I heard Jade yelp and walked out to the side of the house to see her, nose to nose with a hissing football with a bushy tail and bared fangs that obviously did not have a game of Tug-of-War in mind.  Border Terriers are known for having their own minds, but when I called her, she turned tail on the football and ran, with only a glance back that said, “You’re lucky she called me, or you would be SO over!”

Because I was already operating at a disadvantage due to having grown up in an ecological wasteland, I called the veterinarian, who told me to bring her in so they could check for bites and give her a rabies booster.

“What kind of animal was it?”, she asked, still looking at her clipboard.

“Well, it might have been a beaver.  Or a very large squirrel.  Possibly a jackalope.”

The vet glanced up from her clipboard.  ”You’re not from around here, are you?”, she asked.

“Well, I don’t really know what kind of animal it was….”, I said, feeling like a total doofus.

“Stay here.  I’ll be right back.”

When the vet came back, she was holding what appeared to be a stack of flash cards, and she spread them neatly on the examination table.  Each card had a different rodent on it.

“Pick one”, she ordered, and I suddenly realized what she was asking me to do.  She wanted me to pick the culprit out of a line up.

“This one”, I muttered, obediently pointing to the third card.

“That’s a groundhog”,  she said matter-of-factly, doing an admirable job of staying professional and not laughing hysterically at me, although I could tell she sort of wanted to.

Fortunately, Jade was fine, and although she avoided the spot in our yard where she had met her match for a while, was none the worse for the wear.  I, however, am still humiliated.  But at least now I know what a groundhog looks like.