Benji the Hunter

For some time now my dog, The Nuge, has been sent into a tizzy every time he looks out on the patio at night. He is convinced he’s seen something and becomes a sort of Pepe le Pew on crack. He fiercely prances up and down the stairs emitting a high pitched whiney one might expect to hear from a terrified, small horse. As this is too much to ask anyone to endure, I indulge his freakish whimsey and let him out back. At the opening of the door he transforms from insane pygmy-pony to stealthy attack-puma. For months this went on, and I never saw anything. So we, my wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, and I, have been joking that The Nuge has been hunting a mouse ghost.

However, Saturday morning I found some mouse poops in the garage. Maybe The Nuge wasn’t as nuts as I thought. So I put “mousetrap (real, not board game)” on my mental list of things to get next time I was at the hardware store.

Saturday night, The Nuge went into his frenzy as usual, and as usual I let him out. Only this time, I saw a dark shadow scurry in terror as The Nuge rushed out. I turned and exclaimed to my wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, “Jesus Cristo, there really is something out there!” No sooner had I said that, I looked back and The Nuge was flinging something across the patio. I swung the door open and called The Nuge to me. My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, rounded up The Nuge and I went to investigate.

What I found was either a stunned or deceased mouse, I will never know for sure. I called to my wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, and said, “Well, there really was a mouse and The Nuge caught it.” My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen was a tad grossed out by the whole episode and said, “I am going to go brush The Nuge’s teeth.” Seemed like a good idea; who know what that mouse may have carried.

The part that cracked me up though was the confusion on my wife’s, Miranda Kopfschmertzen’s, face. She was obviously struggling with her emotions. On one hand, her sweet little boy just became Cujo in her mind. But on the other hand, terriers are mousers by nature and The Nuge didn’t do anything we hadn’t intended to do ourselves. At least The Nuge had the balls to take on the mouse mano a mano (as nature intended) and give it a fighting chance whereas we would have just gone out and bought a trap to do the job for us. (Ironically, The Nuge has no balls, nor does he or the mouse have hands.)

My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen has since taken to calling The Nuge “Lennie.”