Rats!

Mr. E told me tonight that Marshall discovered a rat in the woodshed. Literally. Our yard is apparently on the rat path between point A and point Wherever...so they run through on occasion. Sometimes they stop for a rest under the shed....sometimes they breeze straight on through to the neighbor's yard and points beyond.

Neither situation is acceptable to the Fierce Protector of Our Domain.

The dog has been going nuts for the last hour. He'll spend 15 minutes barking his head off in the yard and bounding around like a jackalope...then beg to be let back in, only to pace around for a few minutes, look at me for approval, then growl and ask to go back out five minutes later and repeat the whole routine. I'm pretty sure he scared the rat(s) away early in the process...but, like any good watch dog, he needs to make really really extra certain sure.

The up side to this (excessively noisy) adventure is twofold: 1) rats won't *dare* scurry into this yard anymore...and 2) the 62lb toddler-on-four-legs will sleep like an angel tonight.

Everybody wins!