Mouser - Chapter 1

Doc seems to have a predilection for killing mice!  I was going to wait for one more example, just to make sure it wasn't chance, before posting about this phenomenon . Despite the fact that one more example has not been observed, I don't think three 'pancake mice' can really be chalked up to chance! My horse is a mouser!
In December we discovered the first pancake mouse. Interesting, but I guess a mouse could meet with an untimely end if he or she happened to be strolling through the stall at the right wrong time. Then, in January, as I was cleaning Doc's stall, I found another, very flat, formerly fuzzy mouse.  I was amused that this had happened a second time. I must have very slow mice, or very dumb mice...or just maybe, a very talented horse with rather large feet.  The following week I picked up what looked like a tarantula with my manure fork...knowing that there was no way there could be a tarantula,

in Doc's stall, 

in Colorado, 

in sub-zero temperatures! 

The tarantula-like object, upon closer inspection, held cautiously on the end of the manure fork, was the remains of some hapless rodent that had been stomped on repeatedly, cutting the hide into leg-like strips. Ouch!

So, I have concluded that my horse is a mouser. I have tried to decide whether Doc's reaction is:

• "Absolutely not. You may not have even one little piece of grain. I don't get enough of it as it is. Take that....and that....and that." 

or

• "Eeeeek! A mouse!"

I have thought of conducting a test with a mouse. But wasn't quite sure how to go about it. Then, I found this MythBuster's episode:




Ah hah. I can hollow out a nice, dried out horse pile, acquire a mouse and conduct my own test. Oh, it is so tempting. I would love to see Doc's reaction to a tiny rodent. But, alas, my heart is too soft. I couldn't, in all fairness, subject a small critter, even a despicable, dung defecating, disease spreading rodent to the possibility of being stomped by Doc's size 2's. Nor could I, in good conscience, subject Doc to a 'mouse desensitization' lesson. And, besides, what if the mouse got away?!