To the Rescue #2

If you're new to my blog, you probably haven't seen this post about our rescue of some baby possums. Let me tell you, that was one of the grossest things I've ever done to save an animal. I had to actually reach into the pouch and retrieve a couple of them who were still trying to nurse from their mother. Yuck! I won't ever do that again! (at least until I come across another dead mother possum with babies that are going to die without her).

Somehow little critters that need to be rescued seem to show up around here when Daniel's at work (I guess they know they won't get much help from him. Ha!) Well, we've been at it again with this little guy.

I was sitting at the computer the other day waiting for the kids to get up when the dog started barking. Nothing unusual because Grandpa usually drives down our driveway about that time of day. But he didn't stop. He just kept barking and barking and barking. Well, I was waiting for the kids to wake up, but I wasn't quite ready for them to get up, if you know what I mean. I wasn't about to let a barking dog interrupt the last few minutes of peace and quiet I had for the morning, so I looked out to see why he was barking.

From the window, I could see a little furry creature trying to escape from Butter. I thought it was a mole (I've saved one of those from another dog before). I grabbed some shoes and a towel and went out to save the poor thing from Butter.

When I got out there, I discovered that it wasn't a mole, but a gopher. Butter wasn't trying to hurt it, he was just trying to play with his new friend the terrified little thing. It was so cute! Butter would stand over it and bark and the little thing would open it's mouth really big to show it's teeth and raise up it claws. Very David and Goliath-ish. I reached down with the towel and picked it up. Butter got really excited that I was going to play with his new "toy" too.

I took the gopher out into the woods behind the house and let it go. I held Butter back to give it time to make it's escape and gave him some food to distract him. I made it back inside and found that my luck had held out-still no kids up.

Back to the computer for a few more minutes. Dakota was the first one up. I said, "See what happens when you sleep in? You miss cool stuff, " and told her the story. She was pretty disappointed until we heard the dog barking again. Apparently the gopher wasn't fast enough.

This time, she and Landon helped me. We scooped him up in a shoebox and brought him inside to observe him a little. Then, we tried again to let him go. The kids distracted the dog with more food (and the leash) while I took the gopher to a different place and let him go. Unfortunately, Butter is stronger than Dakota and he pulled her over around the side of the house where he could see where I went. Then, he got off the leash. Didn't take long before we were back to square one. Only this time, Butter didn't want to give up his toy so easily.

I finally got the leash back on him and took him back to the pen. Once he was locked up, I scooped up the gopher and took him back to the woods for a third time. He wasn't really moving much, but I thought maybe he just needed to rest a bit from his crazy meeting with Butter.

Sadly, he didn't make it. I guess playing with Butter got the best of him. But, we did the best we could. Like Dakota said, he probably would have been snake food anyway (way to look on the bright side Dakota!).