Last year my brother and sister-law were ready to leave the following a.m. for 6 months in Fla.A squrrel suddenly appeared and they spent the day chasing it all over the house. When finally caught after hours, they spent the rest of the day cleaning up! Then delayed the trip a day or two until they felt it was squirrel proofed. They also think he came down the chimney.

Um, the dog and cat are predators. The squirrel is prey. I'm pretty sure I know who would have gotten the short end of the stick in that matchup. Although squirrels *can* give unpleasant bites. They can also trash the hell out of your house.

OMG! What a great story. Mason is Baaad Ass!!! We have one that "knocks" on the back door for peanuts, but no way in. I believe you need to make some superhero capes for your heros!

HA! Love it - you painted a great picture - I could see the whole thing unfolding.

Too bad you didn't grab the camera. I would love to see the look on everyone's faces! Now my hearts racing!

We're akin! I had a possum sneak up our dryer vent on my birthday morning. Our cat found him. My poor husband woke up at 2 am with me screaming to come get this thing. I couldn't sleep that night and he knew it, he thought I had a drink or two to celebrate my birthday. LOL.

ROFLMAO...that is soo funny!!! The scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation came to mind!!
You go Mason!!!

poor squirrel. he must have been totally freaked out!

but good for mason. clearly the cat is a much better watch dog than the dog. cats rule! dogs drool!

and what a great story for patrick to tell at school today.

Thanks for the laugh this morning Carole! I really needed it.

We get birds in the house sometimes from the woodstove and that is scarey enough. I have to restrain the dog and let them loose and hope they fly out the back door. A squirrel would probably put me over the edge.

Hey - at least it wasn't a skunk???

that's nuts!! ;)

It's amazing how the littlest critter can generate the biggest drama, isn't it?

Mercy... almost Keystone Cops, eh? YAY Mason!
(I'm really glad no one was injured)

Go Mason! Kick some squirrel butt!

Oh Carole. This is horribly funny but must have been scary at the time. My mother's uncle once went into his attic which was mostly unused and saw something large at the end. It was a massive squirrel nest. The pest remover said they get calls all the time about squirrels in houses.

Now rent the newer version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp) and see if squirrels aren't on the Sh*t-list forever. They freak me out.

Mason deserves some catnip...like a dumptruck load. Patrick needs chocolate cake and lots of ice cream. ;o)

Yikes! What a squirrel could do inside a house! But hurt the dog or cat? Naaaah. The squirrel was the one in danger from them. And if either/both of them had had the opportunity to go after the squirrel, your house and stuff would have been the big loser. For all of you (squirrel included), I'm glad you were there to prevent those wild scenarios.

Dan's mom once called us to "come over and help me, please" without explanation. His dad had taken to feeding the squirrels peanuts a few times a day... and they would rush to the porch when the door opened. Well, they ran out of peanuts and Dan's mom was opening the front door--- porch full of squirrels. Back door: landing full of squirrels. if she tried to open the front or back door, the sound would "call" more squirrels. We got to the house and saw Dan's mom , in the front window, with the phone... and the house... surrounded by squirrels. I couldn't stop laughing. She was terrified they were going to get in the house.

Wow! What a story! Way to go, Mason!

That's hilarious. Obviously, it's not funny when you're in it, though.

My mother had been hearing these strange noises in the middle of the night and couldn't figure out what it was and, of course, my dad couldn't hear it and pretty much thought she was imagining things.

So, a few days later, Mom walks by the fireplace and hears *snoring*. Very loud and unmistakeable snoring coming from the damper. She called the exterminator and it turned out a family of raccoons had made our chimney damper their home.

Ew!

We had a squirrel in house before too. It also got in through the chimney. It was hilarious trying to get him out. I don't think you have to worry about your pets. They know how to deal with squirrels. Your house on the other hand might have been a wreck if pets and squirrel were left alone for very long. I kept thinking you were going to say the squirrel tipped over the candles and started a fire.

I can't stop laughing at the image of Dale branishing a sword at a squirrel in the kitchen!!! What a great story!

Wow, you are so lucky your housed wasn't trashed from that squirrel running around.

I can't even imagine. I'd freak.

Instead of camera you thought CAT!? ;)

Squirrels are evil. Oh sure, they look cute and fluffy. But it's all a clever charade. I worked at a girls' summer camp one summer and our island (we were located on an island) was INFESTED by the cutest little red squirrels. They stole everything (from glasses to cameras to batteries to wallets) and kept breaking into the kitchen (we found squirrel prints on a cake once...eww). Even the larger ones are still evil. In NYC we have gray squirrels and they just jump out of the trashcans at random moments, intent on causing a heart attack in some nice old man who was just trying to throw out his bagel.

Pure evil.

Rodents of any kind, in the house, just freak.me.out.
That said--I thought you were going to open the kitchen door and find the squirrel eating the chicken with mushroom sauce. ;)

OMG! I would've been totally freaked out.

What a great story! I love that Dale grabbed a sword!!!

Oh no! I hope the elegant candlelight dinner eventually resumed. In similar straits, my weapon of choice is a broom. If the intruder is too big, fast, or mean to be thwacked, I call animal control - or the police!

Fantastic story! In our first apartment, a squirrel chewed through the screen to get inside at some nuts I had on a bowl on a coffee table. Trashed the place as we were both at work. Who knew that something so small can wreak so much havoc.

Whew, that is quite a story! I'm guessing the squirrel was even more afraid than you were. My aunt used to have a "pet" squirrel (lived outside in the wild, but somehow she'd tamed him) who would come inside to visit every so often, then return to the outdoors!

Ha. You would have arrived home and Mason would have said, "No thanks, Mom, I don't need dinner tonight - I ordered in."

I'm thinking that Mason and Dixie would have been fine - but the squirrel might not have been... We used to have a Siamese who would drag home squirrels and rabbits all the time. I really wish you had a picture of Dale and the sword and the squirrel!

With all the snow in Toronto, I bet you're getting Yarn Harlot's beastie, who's come down for a vacation. Is all the yarn and spinning protected?

LOL!

A friend of mine recently woke up to a squirrel sleeping on top of him while he slept in his bed.

We had squirrels in our loft. My man went into the loft to block the hole, and left the hatch open. I went off to work. When I got back, my dog (lurcher) was sitting guiltily in his bed with a dead grey squirrel the size of his head in the middle of the living room floor. I have no idea what happened as there was no blood, nothing trashed, no scratches, nothing. I think he may have dirty-looked it to death.

That is freaky. A few years ago, I accidentally ran over a squirrel. Well, that day, there was a picture in the Globe of a squirrel eating an acorn. My co-worker enlarged the picture and stuck it on my monitor, along with a caption.

What a wild story! You'll get great mileage out of that one for years. I don't have a squirrel story (other than when we used to grease the birdfeeder pole with Crisco and watch the squirrels jump on it and slide down), but I once made the mistake of trying to scare a couple of racoons out of the yard. They charged me and I ran screaming back into the house.

Mason, our Hero!

What????? NO pictures???????????????????????? What kind of blogger are you? Good for Mason. We had bats a while back and I too worried about the cats but the were fine.

The little bugger was probably after your fleece.

the only thing missing was a camera

Ewww. I thought it was bad when we had a lizard in the house! My skin is crawling at Shannon's comment- and the thought of a squirrel running around. I'm not a big fan of squirrels. :)

I'd love to hear more about the chicken with mushroom sauce. Sounds fabulous!

I'm not usually afraid of bugs or small animals, but a squirrel in the house? That would freak me out! My parents had a similar thing happen only it was a flying squirrel so it just flew past my mother one morning when she was sitting having breakfast.
Good thing he didn't want to eat the chicken ;-)

Hmmm, wildlife should stay outdoors. I wonder what the cat's version of this story would be?

What a guard dog is right. Thank goodness Mason was on the job!

Have you ever heard "Squirrel Cop"?

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/driveway/archive/2003/jan/030123.html

What a story!

I agree with you about squirrels. They're fine outside & I don't think about them all that much. But I do NOT want one in my house!

I had to laugh at the image of Dale & the sword. :-)

My hairdresser told me a story about raccoons getting into his vacation house--when no one was there. Those things caused an incredible amount of damage, and were difficult to remove. Good thing that the squirrel didn't stay too long.

Keep a watchful eye. I'll try to make my long story short. We had a rotting window frame in one of the gable ends one year and a bird decided that right inside the attic was a good place for her nest. They were good tenants, so we let them be. They enlarged the hole, however, so that the following year a squirrel decided to take up residence. Well, everyone knows that squirrels are just party animals, so we evicted him and DH (finally) replaced that rotting board. End of story... or so you'd think.

Squirrel did not take the eviction well and, apparently, liked our "apartment." He scratched and clawed and chewed his way through that brand new board to stake his claim. We strong-armed him out -- hubby with something (a broom? a shovel?) in the attic trying to shoo him out while I pounded on the sleeping porch ceiling from below -- we didn't want him getting comfortable, you know? We finally got him out and DH put up a piece of sheet metal over the window frame area to keep the squirrel out!

All we get up and down our chimneys are wasps and snakes (I fixed the snake problem with a couple bricks and the cats eat the wasps). Squirrels are much more exciting - especially if you get to chase them around with swords!

Poor Patrick!

Good thing Dale and Mason can both think on their feet. Now please tell us about the chicken in mushroom sauce. Not that I cook or anything...

I would have been freaked out too. Kind of like the time my cat Murphy brought a snake into the house. Or the time he brought a live bird into the house . . . .

This has to be my favorite squirrel story of 2008.

We had a bat in our house flying around once. (Turns out the neighbors had just sealed the bats out of their house, so all these bats were homeless.) Anyway, we're not afraid of bats, but I didn't want one zooming around over my head while I slept, so I helf up a big sheet to block off the upstairs and Mom tried to block him out of the kitchen with a towel, except she kept ducking when he came near her and getting by. Finally Dad caught the bat in the curtain and let him out outside, but I had cramps in my stomach from laughing so hard at my Mom.

We've got one of those little guys in our house. He ate through the screen on the garage window to get to the birdseed we had stashed there. We closed the window, he ate through the window frame! With winter, he came into the walls of the house. The other night, I heard him in the kitchen. I kept turning on the vent fan to scare him off so I could sleep, but every time I turned it off, he returned. Eventually, I turned on the vent light and he stayed away. We trapped him in the garage the next day, but he has a buddy I saw in the garage today.... sounds like we will have a battle. The dogs keep them from being very visible in the house...we don't have a sword to brandish at them. I like the visual!

I once found a squirrel in our bread drawer eating Hostess Ho-Ho's. He'd been doing it for quite some time but we kids had been getting blamed for it. It took me catching him in the act to get us all off the hook. I hate squirrels.

Oh my good gosh. That is completely HILARIOUS!! Thank goodness your animals are okay and it wasn't anything crazier than a funny story. Reminds me of when we'd get a bat in the house at my grandparents. heh Oh the memories. :)

OMG - I laughed so hard I peed my pants! Yea for Mason - what a cat! That squirrel could have made mincemeat out of your belongings had you not been there!!! Too funny - and glad it was just that - and that no harm came to you, the others, and especially the four-footed ones...

Hey, did you see that the adorable beagle won at Westminster last night...his name is UNO...and he is so cute!!!

Yea Mason! It's a funny story to tell now, but I'm sure it was scary for all of you to experience. Your family dinners are exciting!

The only experience I have with unwanted animals in my home, is possums. There's a mommy who liked to come give birth every summer under our deck and one evening one of her babies walked into the house and hid under the recliner. I guess that's what I get for leaving the patio door open.

I love squirrels. I used to want to be reincarnated as one but now I would prefer an eagle.

Yikes! Fit to be tied. They make a MESS and get nasty. (Only raccoons are worse, I'm told.)

I can just see Mason strutting around all puffed up because he saved the day! Yay Mason!

ever since high school, when squirrels invaded my mother's roof and woke me up all summer chewing on the roof, we have been mortal enemies. my dad would shoot them with the BB gun to try and scare them off, and you could hear the BBs bouncing off their thick skulls. since i don't actively try to kill them, i suppose i'm not much of a mortal enemy, but they are never cute and no tears are shed for roadkill squirrels. luckily we don't have squirrels in alaska, just chipmunks with long tails and no stripes. my brother got me a t-shirt for christmas that says "squirrels - nature's little speed bumps." i think that sums it up. glad you got rid of yours fairly painlessly.

I would have loved to seen Dale with the sword - hey maybe a reenactment is in order :)

Thanks for the giggle, and I'm glad your all safe and sound.

Too funny. In our last office, we had squirrels running around above the drop ceiling tiles. There is nothing funnier than watching six tech guys trying to herd a squirrel toward an opening in the ceiling, and deciding who would stick his head up there to see where it was.

When my current boss was applying for her job, the squirrel climbed down the blinds in front of the Vice President's window during the interview. The VP finally caught it in a trash can and we relocated it outside. The landlord patched the hole in the roof. Two days later the squirrel was in the ceiling again.

Good thing you were home! It could be related to the Harlot's and made off with all your fiber!
That beats my pigeon on the bus, almost wipe out Springfields transits buses story, hands down.
And Mason .. good going buddy! He deserves all the treats you can give him.

delurking...now you know where the term "squirrely" comes from!!!

Oh, lordy, that's funny! We had a squirrel in our house once, years ago, and my biggest regret was that I was in London at the time and didn't see the hijinks. They thought it was a bird in the chimney, and two fellows had come over from Dad's office to help take care of it. They opened the chimney flue and the squirrel ran out. Mom and Jilly (our mini-dachshund) both FLEW down the hallway, terrified, while Bobby and George fell over themselves laughing and my Dad calmly opened the glass slider and let the squirrel outside. It took longer to calm my mother down than to take care of the squirrel. And, Jilly? Apparently it was a couple days before she would go sit in the family room and relax again!

Thanks for sharing this story. Freakin' hilarious!

It probably wasn't funny at the time, but I'm LMAO here. Speaking of pumped cats, I'll have to tell the story of Ed and my sister's dog sometime. (Short version: they had a disagreement. Ed won.)

Oh, this is CLASSIC! Ha! And good for Mason, earning his keep like that! ;-)

Sure wish there was a picture of Dale and the sword, though. Maybe you could do a re-enactment? ;-)

Ok...I'm soooooo late in reading this - but better late than never! What a fantastic story! and whooo-baby! GO MASON! I can see him strutting his pride now (all Siamese do it the same way, dontcha know?)
I'm glad you got the critter out. I'd have been worried about the pets, too!
(((hugs)))

OMGosh - terrifying.

Thank you for the warning -- we just moved to a squirrel-laden neighborhood, big black ones and bigger grays. They bounce by along the top of the fences all day long and sway with the wind way up in the trees.

I will be more careful about leaving the patio doors open, and I'll take a look at our chimney. It's just a gas fireplace, and the chimney is this little aluminum box/vent thingy about shoulder height outside the house. If a squirrel did come through it, he would end up on display behind the glass, among the gas logs, but I'm not sure how we'd get him out. Hmmm. Again, thanks for the warning!

Forgot those dogs for watching anything. It is the Siamese who is the best watch animal of them all. Mimi loves to harass the squirrels in the yard by sitting underneath the tree. And trust me when I say that the squirrels are afraid of her. So Mason was just being smart and defending his house. Too bad he forgot to tell the humans to do their part.

But I like that your first though was where was Mason.

Great story, good of Mason to stand up for himself. You were lucky to be home at the time. Last year I read a story in a British newspaper about a squirrel that entered a house through the chimney, when the owners were on holiday. The damage amounted to 20,000 pounds!!!

Happy knitting,

Willemtje (a fellow knitter), the Netherlands

Great story, good of Mason to stand up for himself. You were lucky to be home at the time. Last year I read a story in a British newspaper about a squirrel that entered a house through the chimney, when the owners were on holiday. The damage amounted to 20,000 pounds!!!

Happy knitting,

Willemtje (a fellow knitter), the Netherlands

Great story, good of Mason to stand up for himself. You were lucky to be home at the time. Last year I read a story in a British newspaper about a squirrel that entered a house through the chimney, when the owners were on holiday. The damage amounted to 20,000 pounds!!!

Happy knitting,

Willemtje (a fellow knitter), the Netherlands

And yet, not one picture! haha! :D
I am laughing so hard (you know, it's easy to laugh when you know the ending is happy) and it reminds me of the squirrel in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. You even had family over for dinner!
"SQURRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLL"
:)

Great story. I was hoping you'd say the squirrel ended up on Dale's back without him knowing, a la Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. But the truth is funny enough!

Love Patrick's sweater, by the way. Beautiful.

ROFL - sounds like a scene from my childhood. If it wasn't squirrels or chipmunks it was bats. Though, my mom liked to lay on the floor and scream, "GET IT!" to my father, who's weapon of choice is to this day a tennis racquet. ;o)

Go Dale and Mason! Defenders of the House! ;o)

we don't have squirrels here in Oz and so to us they're just cute ... is all the panic because of possible rabies ? - which we also don't have here - or some other reason??