Harley McGuire, SedonaEye.com star pet columnist talks about Sedona critters that drop by uninvited

Sedona AZ (October 3, 2013) – Will someone puleeze let me know why human beings are so touchy about nothingness?

For example, just the other day your alert guard dog here discovered a tiny little critter wedged behind some shelves in the family room. My first thought was it was a dream come true, a real life toy exclusively for the purpose of entertaining me!

Well, when Mom discovered why clowns were flying off the shelf and my scratching turned into barking, she moved what stuff was left and tried to catch it by the tail but nope, too fast for her. (Big surprise) However, I must confess to not even having seen it speed down the hallway seeking a safer place to hideout in this never-never-land it most likely had “never” intended to be.

‘Cause I sniffed it out again behind the book shelves in our office, that forced Mother to bring in the vacuum, hoping only that the noise would scare it to run out the sliding door. No such luck. She commenced to remove books from the shelves and . . . well…that accumulation of probably 20 years of dust one would think really scared the daylight out of the little critter.

So far the episode had created two-fold duties: (1) Entertainment for me; (2) Forced Mom into cleaning stuff she preferred to continue to avoid forever if possible.

We just ended up adjourning to the kitchen where food is…Yes, we both worked up an appetite! We did leave the slider open – then got to thinking about what if even more squirrels came into the house instead of the one we hoped had already gone out?

Next Mom saw me digging the rug by the credenza in the dining room, so either the squirrel in the office took another trip or, indeed, a companion had joined forces.

Finally we both gave up but the squirrel(s) to this day is (are) nowhere to be seen!

Now what I really don’t understand here is the night Mom spotted a baby snake in the hallway.

Usually she freaks out if someone even makes mention of a “S-N-A-K-E” but because the hour was late (9:00 PM) she muttered “I can’t be bothered with this now” and calmly retrieved a towel and a glass from the kitchen, put it down by the little snakey’s head, and with a broom gave it a boot, picked up the glass with captured fugitive, covered it with the towel, and dumped it out over the front porch rail.

Hmm . . . wonder if that’s the same snakey we eventually saw smashed in the street later in the summer?

Then, of course, there was the other snake by the hot tub.

It was much larger but Mom knew enough by checking the Google Man to know it was a good kind, so she decided she wanted for it to hang around and be a resident snake to guard the hot tub from encroaching mice and rats who like to chew wires (even though unlike the old hot tub they cannot get into the motor of this one.) Well, she so wanted to get a picture of “Tinkerjac” a name she had given it for what she claimed were “sentimental reasons.”

However, Tinkerjac maybe wasn’t used to being welcomed by humans and took a slithering hike to wherever. Mom reminded me of the resident snake that used to live under the old hot tub. One day when a Game Warden came to put her in jail – until he found out she hadn’t done anything wrong – apologized and offered to remove the snake which he knew Mom didn’t like and was very surprised when she said: “Remove Rodney? No way. He eats rats.”

Go figure!

One other story was that when squirrels were running across the overhead light in the kitchen, Mom became weary and slid the plastic covering back so that maybe at least one would drop out, fall to the counter, where she was prepared to entrap it in a towel and humanely release it back into the wild.

Not so fast.

The squirrel took that bait and it was a bad mistake. Off it scampered after having entered its world of never-never-land. But, you see, Ma Kettle had to leave the house for some unknown reason – at which time I truly did play with my “new toy”  – so by the time she came home it was lying lifeless in the living room, totally intact of course.

As you see, I’m really a very good boy and earn my board and keep. The only true confession here is that I do take advantage of my fear of thunder and try using it as a way to keep Mommy awake at night. Now that it no longer is doing the T & L storms, I thought I was cute enough to continue with the special attention, but “she” is on to me.

The latest threat is that “she” is going to change my name to Poco Diablo! Isn’t that a restaurant and hotel up the road a bit? Why would she name me after a resort?

Help. I need answers.

Four Paws Up!

Lovingly,

Harley McGuire

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