Unwelcome Visitor

We retired early last night shutting both of the bedroom doors hoping this would encourage the dogs to stay in their own room and not bother us but around 1:00am Darcy woke us up with a bark. Stumbling out of the bedroom I see her standing in the back hall just as expected but instead of standing at the door she is intently staring at her water bucket. At 1:00am the brain isn't really firing on all cylinders but the thought did go through my mind, "hmmm wonder if Darcy is getting confused in her old age." The door was opened Emma was called and both dogs made to go outside. While waiting for them to finish I walked into the livingroom and stood next to the still hot glowing woodburner to warm my feet. All of a sudden there was a noise that sounded exactly like one of the dogs drinking coming from the back hall. Just for reference to those who don't know, an English Mastiff is not a quiet drinker. At this point my mind is screaming, "something HUGE must be drinking out of the water bucket and it's NOT one of my dogs!" Not knowing what in the world my eyes would see and dreading it, the lights were turned on only to discover there is no strange dog, wolf or coyote standing over the water bucket but the sound of slurp slurp slurp has not stopped. Inside the water bucket is a poor little mouse desperately trying to get out. It was cold wet and shivering, and that was inside our house, but that mouse's life was about to get worse. The bucket was taken outside and dumped and no I didn't rescue the mouse, he or she probably froze to death shortly after getting dumped on the frosty grass. Time to buy mouse traps. Living in a 150 year old farm house I should have known mice would like to share this place.