Acting squirrelly

An evil squirrel is bedeviling Lucky, my back yard beast.

The athletic rodent delights in taunting the poor mutt with its acrobatics, jumping from limb to limb like some sort of flea-ridden Chinese acrobat, all the time mocking Lucky with a sneering arrogance. I believe I saw the squirrel do a touchdown dance the other day after flying from an oak tree to a sycamore, as my Earth-bound dog looked on in helpless despair.

The squirrel does this on purpose, I have no doubt. I have watched his antics and he clearly has no valid reason to be in my trees. There is no nest there, no fetching female squirrels with which to mate. There are no acorns to gather in my back yard, since Lucky eats anything smaller than she is.

Particularly evil is the squirrel's practice of running back forth along the top of the fence, somehow balancing itself on a 2-inch wide board and swishing its tail at Lucky like some sort of animal gang sign. If dogs could pray, I bet every night Lucky would ask the Lord to please, just once, let that furry SOB slip off the fence and break his leg. That's really her only shot.

I have no illusions about Lucky's intent - she wants to kill the squirrel. And I am solidly in her corner.

Squirrels are a menace. They chew through power lines, they get in your attic, they die in the wall and stink up the whole house because the only way to get them out is to punch a big hole in the wall. Trust me on this one.

And did you know that they have twice caused NASDAQ to crash? I'm not making that up. Al Qaeda is probably training them to help in their next terrorist attack.

Astonishingly, in Georgia, they are considered protected animals. Why are we protecting these pests? There are millions of them running around. I don't think they're in danger of extinction. You may as well protect mosquitoes.

You have to get a permit to kill squirrels. I found this out years ago when I was a newspaper columnist and I recounted a story about randomly shooting my shotgun into squirrels' nests when I was a teenager. A guy from the Department of Natural Resources saw the column, and called me to tell me that I broke the law, and to not do it again. And I never even killed a squirrel that way, though I did once kill a possum who was catching a nap in a squirrel's nest. That'll teach him to trespass.

Well, the government can protect these rabid vessels of disease all they want. Lucky doesn't have a squirrel-killing permit, and I'm not turning her in if she ever executes the vermin. I'll probably have the squirrel stuffed and display it on Lucky's doghouse as a trophy - unless she eats it first.