Today was another very busy day in the tunnels and as usual I had a couple of helping ‘paws’ 😉 Buddy and Tilly are always hunting around as I garden but are never too far away and 9 times out of 10 will come back within a few minutes when called. They sometimes come back together but sometimes I need one to find the other!

Well today my little furry friends went awl….or so I thought.  I called and called and called but they didn’t come back to me.  After about 10 minutes, which was probably only 5, but I was getting a little stressed to say the least and worried that they had gone walkabout on the road.

After another few frantic shouts for BUDDY AND TILLY, Tilly came running to me all excited and out of breath.  ‘Where have you been’ I asked, as if she was going to answer (she is a very intelligent dog, by the way!) Then I asked her where was Buddy to which she started to run off down towards my neighbours house, with me running behind.

There I found Buddy, well Buddys backside is all I could see with his head down a hole in my neighbours garden.  Tilly very quickly joined in and I could see they were both on ‘A Mission’.  There was no doubt that there was a rodent of some sort down that hole and they were both very determined to get IT!  Buddy was so determined that he even tried to chew some concrete which was around the hole 🙂

After another good few minutes of my neighbour and I watching the antics of my furry friends, we decided that they needed a little help to get whatever it was out.  So I pulled them both away from the hole by their collars but they were so strong that they pulled me over to get back to the hole.  My neighbour then decided we should intervene, but how…..boiling water should get IT out we thought.  So off my neighbour went and came back with the kettle of boiling water.  I held back Buddy and Tilly, while he poured so that they would not get scalded and within a couple of seconds out came a…….RAT.  I let go of Tilly and Buddy very quickly and Tilly was in there like a good Jack Russell, one bite of the rat, a quick shake and it was DEAD, GONE, NO MORE! Yey 🙂

Now I just need them to do a little more hunting closer to one of the poly tunnels as I have some little critters eating my tomatoes…..Grrrrrrrrrrrr 😦   I watered my tomatoes this morning and found lots of my little cherry tomatoes nibbled.  Its really upsetting when they are just ripe and ready for picking and I haven’t managed to get my sign up yet saying ‘ONLY FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION’ 😉 Anyway, I did send Tilly into the raised planter, which is normally ‘out of  bounds’ for them but she got a scent and away she went, nose to the ground.  Unfortunately she didn’t manage to hunt anything down so i have had to put the mouse traps out as I think that it is little field mice that are nibbling away at the tomatoes. Ive even put their next favourite snack (after tomatoes) on the traps, peanut butter sandwiches. So lets hope that does the trick.

WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED ON TILLY’S FINDING 🙂