Are Great Danes good hunting dogs?
Well it depends on what they are hunting. Historically, Great Dane’s were bred as hunting dogs. Specifically to hunt wild boar. It was boar hunting that started the tradition of cropping their ears, to protect them from the boar grabbing them. There is more information about ear cropping in Great Danes in the post Don’t cut my Great Dane ears. Our first Great Dane, Selar, taught us that hunting mice is not something Great Danes do. Well at least she didn’t.
Road trip to Idaho
It all started on a road trip to Teton Valley, Idaho. Traveling north from San Diego we camped a few different places. The first stop was at Prosser Reservoir near Truckee, CA. There is a nice camp on the shore of the reservoir and balloons frequently fly the area which we did in the morning.
The next stop was Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. To learn more about this 3 paw park, check out Dinosaur National Monument. After a early morning hike, to avoid the heat, we continued north to Flaming Gorge in northern Utah.
Flaming Gorge has a number of campgrounds, our favorite one is Canyon Rim Campground. However, this time we were camped Lucerne Valley near the Marina. That night we noticed some food scattered around the back of the SUV. Selar wasn’t the type of dog to get into anything and she wasn’t agile enough to climb over the seat to get to the food box. After further digging we found more evidence something was wrong. A bag of snacks was chewed open and we finally figured out we must have a stowaway.
We had a mouse in the SUV
We were a bit concerned he would get in the wiring and start chewing things that made the car go. Next step, pull everything out of the truck and start searching. We aren’t sure how long the mouse was living with us but he had a nice safe spot next to the jack under the back seat where Selar sat. Selar never once gave us any indication she knew anything about the passenger she was sharing the backseat with. Now that he was found out he vacated that spot and did exactly what we didn’t want, he ran under the front dash and into all the wiring. Now we really needed to get him out!
What to do when camping and you have a mouse in your vehicle?
Go into MacGyver mode or course! I devised a mouse trap using an empty pop tart box some granola. Word for the wise, pop tart boxes aren’t heavy enough to trap even a small mouse. All I ended up doing was giving the mouse dinner and a workout.
Once we got to Idaho and a hardware store we bought a small live trap. While I was setting the trap up and baiting it on the floor of the front seat I turn to find the mouse sitting on the headrest watching me. Doh! Are you kidding me? Is this one of those stupid mouse trap movies? Well the mouse still fell for the trap and we are guilty of unwittingly transporting a species across state lines. Although I’m pretty sure they already had mice in Idaho.
Lessons learned:
- Keep your car doors closed when camping.
- Put food in a sealed crate instead of an open milk crate.
- Don’t expect your Great Dane to find the mouse.
