Exactly How Smart Is A Squirrel?

Have I mentioned that Oliver is completely obsessed with squirrels? He spends every waking minute during the daylight hours running from window to window in the house, gunking the glass up with nose prints, infatuated by their every movement. If you happen to be sitting on the couch when one moves from the front of the house to the big tree in the neighbor's yard you should contemplate wearing a helmet. Consider that your warning if you come visiting.

When we took him to the vet for his first appointment after adopting him, Dr. Freeman's first question when noticing that he's mostly Pointer was, "What's he obsessed with? Rabbits?" When we said squirrels he said, "No use it trying to change that. He will spend his whole life chasing them."

Now, I'm not really a squirrel hater like most people. I've always been kind of amazed by them. They are fast, smart, sassy and when they aren't annoying you by stealing things they have no business having, they make you laugh.

However, after dinner last night there was a convergence of events in our backyard that can only be attributed to some sort of freaky planetary alignment or something else kinda bad because, last night, no one was laughing at squirrels. And Oliver was getting whacked at with a tennis racket.

I wrote before about the walnut tree in our backyard. One of the last things we did in the fall was pick up buckets full of walnuts. For some reason - probably laziness - we didn't empty that last bucketful. It's been sitting in the backyard since November. At some point one of the dogs knocked it over and they had great fun snagging a nasty, rotten walnut out of it and playing keep away with each other. About a week ago I realized that the 10 gallon bucket was completely empty. . . and that the squirrels inhabiting our tree were awfully big. There's really no polite way to say it – these buggers are meaty! And, corpulent equals kind of slow I guess.

You know where this is heading. One minute the dogs are playing nicely. The next, Ali and I are running and hollering (in our pajamas for those who want the full mental image!) for Oliver to drop the screaming, writhing squirrel. It finally took a whacking tennis racket and being cornered at the fence behind the lilac bush for him to drop it. I grabbed Oliver and dragged him to the house calling him bad, bad things.

The rest of the evening is now a blur of tears and snot, several visits to the back corner of the yard to see if it was still breathing and moaning, and the general wringing of hands that happens when I'm confronted with a situation I have no good way to handle.

Knowing, that in a million years,  I could never bring myself to finish the squirrel off, I went to both next door neighbor's houses to see if they could do it for me. No one was home. I made several phone calls to those whom I thought might come to our aid. No one answered. Through text messages with someone who was otherwise engaged, it was suggested that we put it in a plastic bag and seal it shut. It was the only viable option left.

We armed ourselves with a shovel, a garbage bag and gloves before heading back there one last time. Thankfully, he was finally dead. We gave him as much respect as possible as we carefully disposed of his obese little body.

The question that we're left with this morning is this - just how smart is a squirrel? They thought they had struck the mother lode when the snow was flying in December and their bucket was overflowing with free walnuts. They ate until they could eat no more. Now they can't run. Are they smart enough to pass the word around about what happened last night? I guess time will tell.

RIP Mr. Squirrel