And so the Trials of Life, Danville edition continues. Last night I went to get Isis in for her nightly glucosamine routine and instead heard Koosh meowing her head off from the edge of the roof. The roof is lowest in front where there's a wall by entryway that she can jump down to, so I started around the side of the house to call her from that side. It was pretty dark, so I stopped by the garbage cans to flip on a light, and darn good thing because there was a big rat hanging over the gate, wedged between the gate and the fence over the latch. I couldn't tell if it was still alive or not, so I went back through the house to get Koosh at the front door and then locked her in so I could deal with the rat without her help. The rat was still alive but not in great shape so I opened the latch with an aluminum baseball bat which freed it somewhat, but it just hung there with its sides heaving. I left it alone to let Nature take its course and this morning it was under the gate and extremely dead.

I think Koosh chased it across the roof and it fell down onto the fence because no other scenario makes any sense. Koosh has hefted much larger items through second story windows in the past, but she tends to stick around until the job is done so I can't see her leaving still-twitching prey hung up on the fence while she went off to explore. Anyway, the rat is dead and gone now and Koosh is pissed off.