Our Little Hero

Noah got a call from his friend Justin to play, so I took him over around 4:00. I came home, made some chai, and went down to the basement to putter a bit on the computer while Lily and Amanda read. I was very surprised to hear a loud bird call coming from the hall leading upstairs. I thought that it was Lily trying to play a trick on me until I saw a brown finch fly around the bottom of the stairs. It must have come in through the crawlspace when I had the door open this morning. Now it was stuck in the basement, confused, and likely scared.

I ran through my options. I didn't like the idea of going after it. I considered shooting it with my BB gun to put it out of its misery, but thought better of that. I opened up the outside door to the basement and tried to goad it into coming out. It was perched on the door leading inside, so I figured I'd go around and knock on the door.

I explained the situation to Amanda and Lily, who were very surprised. Lily wanted to come down to see it. Amanda made some comment about Oreo and that gave me the idea to bring him. It was time to put the half Cocker Spaniel in him to work.

He was very interested in the bird. He ran up the stairs to check it out. I turned off the light in the stairwell and turned on the lights in the basement to coax it out. It found just about every corner of the room until it eventually made its way out with Oreo about one step behind the whole time.

Since I am not a hunter I never thought that Oreo would be good for much more than snuggling on the couch. Today he saved us from what could have been a very messy situation.