On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:55:51 -0500, Kreisleriana
wrote:

On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:50:39 -0500, "Bill Stock"
yodeled:


"Wayne Mitchell" wrote in message
. ..
"Christina Websell" wrote:

Boyfriend decided last year that he was brave enough to catch a grey
squirrel. He climbed an elder tree and waited on a branch for ages and
ages, then a squirrel came. He was *so* excited. He raised slightly on
his
paws. His rump swayed from side to side ready for the killing pounce.
The
squirrel didn't notice him and continued up the tree right to where
Boyfriend was waiting. They met practically face-to-face.
When the squirrel saw him it screeched at the top of its voice and jumped
away among the branches. Boyfie also decided that perhaps it was a bit
larger than he had anticipated and had big teef so he came down the tree..

Probably a very wise choice on Boyfie's part.

Flicka and Zubie used to make many a dash after gray squirrels,
but they were always careful not to ever *quite* catch up to
one. Here in the US, our northern race of eastern gray
squirrels are more than an 8- to 10-pound cat can handle.

I once saw Houdini, my BIL's 14-pound bully boy, get his hooks
into one. The resulting riot of twisting, tumbling gray and
yellow fur disappeared down into a hollow and I never saw the
outcome, but the contest looked pretty even to me and I wouldn't
bet that the squirrel didn't manage to fight the cat off
sufficiently to make his escape up the nearest tree.

So tell Boyfie to use my girls' trick of coming up just inches
short on that final leap. That way he get's all the fun and
excitement of stalking the squirrel and making a fierce charge,
but he doesn't have to deal with the aches and pains which can
come from wrestling with squirrels.

We had a Black Squirrel get into the house once and I've got the scratches
to prove it. Cali got out of Bed and came to see what the commotion was all
about and then promptly went back to bed. You'd think they'd been in the
house every day. Smokey, who loves to jump at the Squirrels when they climb
the outside of the screen door, kept her distance.

Cleo might be the only one insane enough to tackle a Squirrel.


Maybe some of you have heard the public radio show "This American
Life" which tells first-person stories. One of the early shows had a
remarkable story told by a policeman about his very first day on the
job. He recounted-- wonderfully vividly, in rueful detail-- the
diabolical, cataclysmic ass-kicking he and his partner received from a
lone little squirrel they were called to remove from an attic. This
story became an instant classic, and is frequently repeated for pledge
drives, and recordings of "Cop vs. Squirrel" are given away as pledge
premiums.

I heard it for the first time maybe ten years ago, in the middle of
the night when I couldn't sleep. I laughed so hard I literally rolled
right out of bed.


There is also the "live squirrel grenade" story posted by both Yoj and
David Gerecke in this newsgroup on Dec. 21, 2003:
http://tinyurl.com/9boxy or
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...ff&qt_s=Search
The accounts are identical, and both attribute the story to a Daniel
Meyer, so I suppose they must have been copied from another newsgroup
or web site.

--
John F. Eldredge --
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria