I Smell A Rat! Ah, the Rigors of a Dog Door...

I awoke fully rested about 1 pm after a busy night of grocery shopping. I was extremely thirsty and headed into the kitchen to get one of my icy cold water bottles out of the fridge. Something very large and very black went scurrying across the kitchen floor at breakneck speed and under the cabinets by the dishwasher. It about scared the shit out of me. We have rats again. Interestingly, Maggie just ignores them.

I immediately got on the phone with dad's preferred exterminator and he said he would be by this afternoon to throw some "bait bags" under the basement.

"Can you just charge this to my father's account?" I worriedly asked the exterminator.

"I will get in touch with Mr. John about payment," he told me.

"Now, I've got a dog," I told him. "I don't want her to get poisoned."

"Just keep the basement door shut or locked," the exterminator told me. "Your dog will be fine."

Whew! I feel better now. Dad will be absolutely amazed tonight that I handled that over the phone without him having to get involved. He knows my apprehension about using the phone.

Addendum:

"That's why you have rats," the exterminator, Jerry, said. "You've got food and water three feet from a dog door and the dog door has a tear in it and rats can smell that food and water from a mile off."

"I guess I will have to start locking it and only opening it when Maggie needs to be let out," I replied.

That will be incredibly inconvenient, though, I thought to myself.

"That would be the wise thing to do if you don't want anymore pests," he said.