The Rock Squirrels

I've lost count but we're well over 40. All criminal elements with long unsavory histories and teaching their young the same. You'll see some of them at the Post Office or on the FBI web site. I've seen several guests feeding them by hand and now with the arrival of each new guest they test them immediately to see if they can get hand outs. It's a problem.

1. They get all the food I throw out to the critters at the three Breakfast at Tiffany's locations. They have these big vacuum cheeks that suck up all the sunflower seeds leaving little for everyone else.

2. They got up in a vehicle a couple weeks ago and chewed some sensor wires and now not long after each vehicle parks they are up inside checking it for goodies. I've been spraying Critter Begone and a couple other mixtures on engines to keep them off but I think they're building up an immunity.

3. They raid Kobae's food while he's eating it and I have to arm with squirt gun all the children staying at the lodge to blow them off the porch should they come near Kobae's food. The White-tailed antelope squirrels aren't a problem, the Colorado chipmunks are cool, and none of the birds are an issue. Just the rock squirrels.

Usually when I have a problem I just let it roll around in my head for a few days and an answer comes up but with the merger of the two largest clans, the Bloods, and the Crips, the number of problems they are causing accelerating it's become hard to wrap my head around it. I think of a solution for one part of the problem and they become a new problem somewhere else.

Then, a week ago Monday, unexpectedly the solution showed up to the entire rock squirrel problem. Jax. I've never let him chase any of the critters and he's becoming pretty good at listening to my warnings and "to be good." However whenever a rock squirrel comes in the lodge I let him at them. He hasn't caught one but he goes absolutely nuts when they come inside and he's relentless at trying to get them. So now he sits and sleeps just inside the door keeping the rock squirrels from coming in the lodge.

Last week I noticed him staring out the door and then all of a sudden he took for one of the vehicles down the driveway. He signaled (he went nuts) there was a rock squirrel inside and lifting the hood he was right so I flushed it out and Jax chased it off without me yelling at him and that's all the encouragement Jax needed. Now he sits on the porch watching the vehicles and whenever a rock squirrel shows up he charges right out to the vehicles and goes nuts. He jumps up on the hood, climbs down in the engines, disappears up in the wheel wells and refused to leave until the squirrel does. He's pretty dirty but a lot of vehicles are shined up underneath.

Even better he follows me out to feed all the critters and the white-tailed antelope squirrels don't fear him and neither do the Colorado chipmunks or the birds but the rock squirrels won't come to eat until Jax leaves and by then all the smaller creatures have gotten plenty to eat.

It's hard work keeping the yard free of rock squirrels and Jax is pretty tired at the end of each day. But today he found the den of the largest family of rock squirrels, I'd say 10 to 20 of them, and now that he knows where they live, many entertaining days lie ahead.