Poor Pepper has been so envious of that squeaky Kong Wubba toy of Cookie's that she walks around the kennel trying to figure out how to get it for herself. I figure if the puppy has to spend time in the kennel she should have a toy, which is why I've put it in with her. So today I took Pepper with me to the same feed store and we bought out their supply of extra-large squeaker Kong toys. One is camouflage, another is purple like the first, and one is red. I gave Pepper hers in the car and when she got into the house she grabbed it and squeaked and ran. And I gave one to Zeke, and they they proceeded to run around taking them from each other. I have a spare, but I'm hoping having several around will help. Pepper and Cookie get along well now, so we needed to take the pressure off toy-wise.

I've been exchanging mouse catching stories with a friend who lives in New York City and had a huge problem with them a couple of years ago. His record string of catches is 25 mice. I told him about my three and he wrote this today:

Speaking of rodents: I decided to clean the cutlery drawer under my butcher block. I took out all the stuff and washed the plastic holder and then reached in to take out anything left behind. Suddenly I was holding mouse corpse in my hand. Well, you would think I had grasped all of the Bubonic Plague. I threw it into the trash and ran to the bathroom and scrubbed my hand as if I were Lady Macbeth. It was So Gross!

I was laughing so hard from this image that the dogs all came running in to see what the noise was about and Cookie jumped up into my lap.