Dark matters...

[Leafmite]

When I saw your post, I was going to say something along Dollythehun's lines. It is completely natural to feel compassion and heartache when seeing something suffer. I feel bad when I need to throw away the traps that have caught a mouse. I am unhappy to have this vendetta against the mice but, after they were in our home one year and did quite a bit of damage, we are no longer willing to allow them to be guests again. We do not harm them outside but, if they enter our garage, the access point to our home, woe to them.

Our best mouser was a West Highland Terrier we adopted when we first moved into our home. She was amazing. Better yet, we had her trained not to harm the bunny we had at the time or our parakeet so she never hunted bunnies or birds. Our daughter has one now and it has never been much of a hunter. It prefers to bark at the mice to ask them to leave.

[Subrosa]

If a natural method is your choice, nothing beats a ferret for killing lots of small animal quickly, as unlike cats (normally) they will kill beyond their immediate need for food. We had one get loose the Saturday night before Easter at the first pet store I worked at. We had spent quite a bit of time getting the corral set up with all the bunnies and ducklings we anticipated selling the next day. The ferret killed over 50 animals that night. And having been the first person into a chicken coop after the ferret's country cousin the weasel spent the night, the scene was similar. That said, ferrets can be really neat little pets.

[greenpassion]

Wow.!! That must have been a gruesome site to walk into. I think I might stick with the mouse traps because the ferret might eat my dog's!

---------- Post added at 02:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:34 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Leafmite

When I saw your post, I was going to say something along Dollythehun's lines. It is completely natural to feel compassion and heartache when seeing something suffer. I feel bad when I need to throw away the traps that have caught a mouse. I am unhappy to have this vendetta against the mice but, after they were in our home one year and did quite a bit of damage, we are no longer willing to allow them to be guests again. We do not harm them outside but, if they enter our garage, the access point to our home, woe to them.

Our best mouser was a West Highland Terrier we adopted when we first moved into our home. She was amazing. Better yet, we had her trained not to harm the bunny we had at the time or our parakeet so she never hunted bunnies or birds. Our daughter has one now and it has never been much of a hunter. It prefers to bark at the mice to ask them to leave.

That's really cool! One of my dog's, Loki, is very Adept at catching Chipmunks when I'm running on the trails up behind my house in the woods. He's supposed to be a miniature pinscher, and he looks a great deal like one but I'm not really sure. At any rate the mice aren't running around to be seeing in my house they're in the walls, and in the basement and the garage. Loki wouldn't have a chance to catch them because he doesn't go down into the basement or garage unless he's following me. So I guess I'm just going to have to grow a pair! And deal with trapping them. This place is very infested, and I can't monkey around about this.

[jkofferdahl]

Yeah. I'm still worried that you allowed the mouse to suffer, head crushed, in the trap when you threw it in the snow. PLEASE assure me that you killed it.

[greenpassion]

I did. I couldn't let it suffer. I've never deliberately spilled anything in my life. And I hope I never have to again.

---------- Post added at 06:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:31 PM ----------

I don't know if it's just phone, or the cold in the northeast, or what. But I'm not getting notifications that I have an email meaning that I'm not getting the OBS messages.

[Arizona Jeanie]

When I was new in my old house, I tried to live and let live with the mice. They took over. I tried live trapping and moved a few outside, but they caught on to that and I stopped catching them. I tried snap traps, and from time to time would catch one without killing it, as you experienced. I thought that was horrid. Then they caught on to those traps and rarely wandered into one. The rat-zapper caught a few, but didn't really stop them. I came home from vacation to find mice running across the living room floor, I think they were getting too crowded. I finally realized that I was being a poor steward of my living quarters, and it was time to take care of myself. I put out poison bait boxes in the cupboards and closets and other places the dogs couldn't get to, feeling bad about killing them that way but at the end of other options. How can you get them out of the walls? I also had a pest-control company visit and close off all the entrance points they could find--under the eaves, around the foundation, where the pipes come and go. Well, that has worked well. I don't see any dead or dying ones, and they don't seem to kick the bucket where the dogs can find and eat them. They still get in from time to time, but don't last long. There must be a pile of little mummies and bones back in the walls somewhere, but I never see them.
So, it may not be the most humane of choices for the mice, but when it came down to them or me, I picked me this time.

[greenpassion]

Wow! You were really infested! That's quite a story...

[No-Pro-mwa]

I too feel your pain. I don't mess with them outside either but I sure do trap them when they get inside. I've had a bad mess with them also. If I get one like that I to bash it very quickly with a hammer or rock or what ever big. I hate to have to say it but I have had to kill birds bunnies and other things my dogs have maimed. What do you do there animals.

I say I hate humans all the time, it's true they should know better. But to be truthful animals torture also. I know they don't know any better but I also sometimes say I hate nature at times. A coyote or wolf or other things will eat an animal while it's alive. Now that can't feel good.

That being my dark side, I can not stand to see things suffer, I hate it. I want things to die quick so they don't suffer. I'm getting so I can do it much more easily as my dear husband is not any better at it. We have had a fight before as to whom had to kill it. Now how dumb is that.

[greenpassion]

The courage of compassion...

[jkofferdahl]

Originally Posted by greenpassion

I did. I couldn't let it suffer. I've never deliberately spilled anything in my life. And I hope I never have to again.[COLOR="Silver"]

Thank you. That answer also ended my suffering!