Like a thief in the...

afternoon Ellie crept out of the Orangery.  One leg lifted high and with care, she could have been starring in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The other paws followed in the same stealthful style.  She was good at this.  She crept up the steps then along the top to where Ratty so intent on gorging on the sunflower seeds was completely oblivious to the foe silently approaching.

With a mad scramble she shot along the flower border only to see the tail departing under the garden fence.

Mind you if she had of caught him she I am sure wouldn’t have known exactly what to do.

What makes me say that?

The other day after months and months of chasing she caught a squirrel, much to her amazement as well as ours.  She kept pawing it as it tried to get away, similar to a cat playing with their victim before the kill. We called her off and I sent the husband to investigate and to do the deed if necessary.  He couldn’t find it, so it was decided the best thing to do was to send her in to flush it out, which she did and luckily it got itself up the tree, looking dazed but seeming okay.  We were all glad, well apart from Ellie I suppose?  

I well remember me having to kill a squirrel that Letty had caught but not finished off.  I went up to check it was dead.  It was badly injured and I had the job of despatching it.  Not a task I would recommend to anyone.  The problem I had was I hadn’t taken the deep leaf mould into account and hitting it on the head, just pushed it further into the forest floor.  It took me a couple of goes, I remember the horror to this day!

As I sent the man off, coward that I am  I reminded him of my mistake and be sure not to do the same thing.

Meanwhile Ratty is getting ever more adventurous.