Prey

Sunshine is a hunter! When I was pregnant, she got outside right before bedtime and caught a mouse. She dropped it in what was to become Logan's nursery, but at the time was a wasteland of boxes and yet-to-be put together furniture. It took us about an hour to catch the darn thing and we were able to get it outside alive. Sunshine was then banned from going out after dark.

Well, Don and I were enjoying the cool night air last week and she was outside with us. We haven't been quite as rigid with our "no outside after dark" rule since we moved into the new place, and she has been taking advantage. I saw her focus on something in the front and then dart after it. I noted to Don that I thought she might be stalking something, but, silly me, I didn't think she would actually catch it. Wrong. Sunshine ran back toward us and Don yelled, "She caught something! It's in her mouth! Don't let her in!" I was waaaaay too slow, and only served to make her run faster toward our bedroom. We found her under our bed with a small animal under her paw that looked like a bird.

We shooed her out of the room (in retrospect, this might have been a mistake, as she could have helped us catch the thing), and used our broom to get said "bird" out from under the bed. Then Don looked at me and said, "I think it is a lizard." Oh, my heart sunk. Mammals I can handle. Birds? No problem. Reptiles not so much. They really creep me out. I knew Don was going to be even more freaked (he detests snakes, so I figured this was just the same) so it fell to me to catch it. It went behind my magazine carrier so I moved it out and screamed, "It's a SNAKE!!!" Not my finest hour. It really did look like a snake, and a nasty one at that. Don flew around the bed, grabbed the trash can, and trapped the animal. It really was an alligator lizard after all, but it was pretty big. Maybe 7-8 inches long and fat. Ugh. Don totally stepped up and I so didn't. Unfortunately, the reptile didn't survive the encounter, and Sunshine was mighty pissed that we took her toy away. Logan slept through the whole thing.

Here is Don trapping it



Here it is on our back patio. *shudder*