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3:21 p.m. - Tuesday, Jun. 08, 2004
I Have My Moments of Doubt, But I Try to Ignore Them
What odd sort of moral sense has me convinced that where non-human animals are concerned, it's not wrong to kill them (quickly and [one hopes] painlessly) but it is wrong to make them suffer?
So last night, as I opened the back door of the garage to put Maya in there so the other dogs could come outside without a fight, I heard a plastic rattling at the far end of the garage. Instantly I knew what it was: one of the mice that have been stealing the peanut butter from my mousetraps had been quick but not quick enough.
Those traps are great. I've killed about 7 mice since I put them in last winter.
But this, obviously, was another story: a mouse still alive, but caught in the trap.
So I had to turn on the light and go over and find the mouse (not hard, with the clacking sound to guide me) and found him trying to get out of the mouse exit with his paw caught in the trap, which was twice his size. I was afraid that when I reached down to free him, he'd jump up and bite me, but he didn't. He just looked up at me with his poor little frightened mouse eyes. I squeezed the trap, the mouse came free and instantly he scurried away. He's probably got a broken paw, but he'll survive it to come back another day and try to steal some more peanut butter. And next time I hope he gets killed.
Weird, huh?
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