Speaking of the Wild....

Speaking of the "Wild", I had a couple of my own little wilderness adventures last night. First, I came home in the evening to find these little tracks running through the yard--anyone have any ideas of what could have made them? I thought maybe a rabbit, but there are no front paw prints. What walks on just two feet around here? I'm no zoologist, but I'm pretty sure we don't have monkeys or wallabies around here! And the tracks certainly don't look like they were made by a bird. I'm not up on my troll lore--do they hop? Did a Norwegian troll leave these funny little hippity hoppity tracks in my yard?
After spending far too much time contemplating the pawprints, I heard a noise coming from the forest. Some twigs crunching, and then breathing. That kind of wet, snuffly breathing sound that horses make. I froze and peered into the darkness, but I couldn't see a thing. Stories of moose charging at people started running through my head, so I whirled around and raced for the safety of the house. Once inside, I could laugh at myself for being ridiculous, and then I ate some leftover Halloween candy, for courage of course.
I still had to take the dogs outside, so I put my hat and gloves back on. I opened the door, looked around, listened...nothing. So I let the dogs out the door, and Honey immediately saw something. She barrelled up the hill furiously as I chased her. When I reached her, she was excitedly hopping up and down...on a rat. It was on its back, kicking and trying to get away. I really don't think she wanted to hurt it, but when she gets excited, she tends to pounce. The cats have been victims of her enthusastic pouncing before, but a 20 pound cat can handle an enthusiastic dog a lot better than a tiny rodent. I grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back inside, then went back to check on the rat. I know, I know, it's a rat, it's at the bottom of the food chain, most people kill them (and most people would probably be thrilled to own a rat-stompin' dog). But I felt so bad for the little thing, it was so scared. It was still in the snowbank, alive and breathing, but not moving. I scooped it up in a towel and brought it into the house to assess its injuries. (At this point, if Kevin is reading my blog from his hotel room in China, he's screaming, "You brought WHAT into our house!") The rat was actually really cute, not like a big, scary New York City sewer rat, but more like a little, brown gerbil. It wasn't bleeding, but it kept moving its head in a strange motion, so I think it was seizing. I tried putting some Karo syrup into its mouth via syringe, as sometimes the sugar rush will snap an animal out of a seizure, but it didn't help. So there I was, sitting on the floor with a seizing rat wrapped in a towel, and I really was able to see the absurdity in the situation, but I couldn't stand the thought of putting the rat out in the snow to die. Unfortunately, the rat never regained consciousness, and it died about 10 minutes later. Still, I hope I was able to make it a little more comfortable in its final moments. And I'm also really glad I didn't leave it in that snowbank last night--the idea of chasing Honey down this morning and wrestling a frozen rat-cicle out of her mouth does not sound like a good time!