Hi all and thanks. We hope the next baby ~>insert species of your choice hereDaisy. Master Gardener. Puppy corrupter, I mean, role model, pond assistant, kitty head stuffer, mugger with A rubber chicken.... Yes, she manages to put a smile on our faces and perhaps a few bruises from the chicken assault. :-) We also discovered she is a Bird Nutritionist. No high cholesterol for our Downy Woodpeckers, the Pileated guys, the Yellow Hammers, the Nuthatches and everyone else. No way. No how! Daisy jumps up and brings down the suet feeders ... breaks into them and eats the suet! Then she has the bloody diarrhea from eating all that fat! Good girl, Daisy! Sacrificing yourself to protect the little feathered birdy visitors from eating that stuff. Good Girl! Now I need to climb up on a plastic milk crate to hang the suet feeders higher in the trees so Daisy can't pull them down. The other feeders needed to be raised higher too because she's pulled them down and she and Rani have destroyed many seed feeders. :-( Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing. Do I believe this yet? Pets are relaxing. Pets are relaxing.... She brought home a mouse this afternoon. We think he came from the compost pile area. He was wet but not harmed as he ran through the kitchen. He was caught, dried off, fed with grapes, apples and some seeds and water. Then he was put back in the compost pile with some seeds and apologies for being kidnapped. Pets are relaxing....

Well, it's debatable whether my dogs wanted to run the mean squirrel off or were just excited. I do think animals have feelings. Some researchers say that a wagging tail signals anxiety, and that when a dog licks you they are not being affectionate. I don't believe either of those claims. I think dogs can sense feelings, illness and know what death is. They seem to me to have many of the same feelings people have. There are some good books about animals by Jeffrey Moussaif Masson, like When Elephants Weep. But I know too that animals can be mean, and that sometimes what looks like meaness is just the instinct to survive. My cat kills baby rabbits around here. I guess I should thank him for protecting my roses. I don't think of him as a mean cat..in fact he has been a nurturing cat to any other cat who has come to our house. He also can be affectionate to our dogs even though they like to chase him. Squirrels can get to be a nuisance..I have a friend who had them in her attic. I wouldn't want to encourage more squirrels to live in our yard. I just never imagined aggression in squirrels. I had a cute image of them in my head.

Hav-a-heart traps work very well for squirrels. I use a slice of apple with a little peanut butter smeared on for bait. Squirrels tend to multiply so quickly, I find it important to get them when I see them. Renais

Upnort Thank you for all that great information, i did not know if a suqirrel loses part of his tail he-she will never find a mate,so sad, i have a couple like that out back. Just this morning i was talking to my neighbore on the phone and i was watching one of my hosta moving and moving, i am wondering what the heck is going on over there,about 10 min, or longer, i wanted to see if what ever it was would come out, and it did, a young squirrel,there has been some interbreading going on back here,lol He is a gray squirrel with a very long skinny, i mean, skinny,red tail,pretty soon another one showes up, i believed it was a couple of young ones, but after reading your info. ,now i am sure of it, have not seen these two before. I watched a suqirrel a couple of years ago strip the bark of a tree,it was so interesting to watch,she keept pulling and pulling at the bark,until she got long stripes of it,then she would carry it up to her nest,come back for more,and do this over and over again, i thought for sure the tree would be dead the next year,but it still just as healthy as ever,my thoughts on this,maybe the tree serves the purpose it was meant to serve,and it is such that it does not kill this paticular tree,our creator desigened things in such a fashion.I am only a guest here with the honor to see thing happen that i would not ordinarily get to see. I will have to look for that book upnort, it sounds like a fun read,thanks for that information. Carol