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My wife treed a squirrel (sort of)

Monday, July 7, 2014

Squirrel! If you've seen Pixar's Up, then you probably remember the running squirrel! gag. Somehow, this became a thing with our dogs. Any utterance of "squirrel" causes them to, well, freak out. (It also works with "girl" and "curl", by the way.)

So the missus and I were taking a brief stroll before church when she spotted a squirrel about twenty feet away. She called out "squirrel!" and we played up the gag, and sort of half-heartedly ran after it. Funny thing was, this guy didn't seem overly concerned. He ran, sure, but it didn't seem like he felt he was in any real danger.

So we half-chased, half-followed him into the alley, where he ran up a telephone pole. He still didn't seem particularly alarmed, and stopped a few feet up. At this point, if we were hunting for survival (in an urban landscape), we probably could have tagged him. (Well, probably not without a fair amount of practice, and assuming we'd be ready to skin and cook him.) At this point the missus was eager to elicit a reaction, while I concerned myself with photos.

Fuck this, I'm outta here!'
Fuck this, I'm outta here!

After a few moments, he'd apparently had enough and climbed the remainder of the pole to the top, where he just stared down at us, probably silently mocking our inability to climb a pole. Still, even at this point, he didn't seem to care much about our presence save he was out of our reach. I'm guessing it's because he's a city squirrel, and is relatively used to people being around, if not to being chased by them. With any luck, we gave him a healthy respect for the human race, or, at the minimum, a useful apprehension.

You may bugger off now, thank you kindly.
You may bugger off now, thank you kindly.

As we walked away, he looked like he might be considering running the wires to the safety of the adjoining roof, but he didn't. But he continued to watch us, probably wondering just what the hell we are. Either that, or my wife's reputation preceeds her.