The Outdoors Come Indoors - The Intelligence of Animals

What do you do when the outdoors come indoors? We have a rogue squirrel that has discovered insulation in the basement, and that insulation makes a nice warm nest for winter. So this squirrel is stealing our insulation, or maybe it is even making a nest somewhere in the basement who knows!

I set a live animal trap so I could relocate it. It is one of those traps that look like a cage with two doors on either side and a pressure sensor plate in the middle. You put the bait on the plate and when the animal takes the food off the plate, the doors close and it's trapped. My plan was to catch it and take it far away from the house and release it.

I tell you that squirrel is very intelligent. It KNEW what the trap was and managed to get into the trap, get the bait, and get out without setting the trap off the first time. I decided to set it again, maybe it didn't work properly the first time.

This morning I went down to the basement to check the trap again. The squirrel is sitting there outside the trap munching on the bait staring at me like "Hey what's up? Thanks for the food!" The doors still open. I stood there to watch it, and it didn't even run off. It stared at me until I flipped a light switch. I wanted to see where it was going and hopefully by it running of, it would show me how it was getting into the basement.

It ran off into one direction, and I quietly took a few steps in that direction. I am on the other side of a wall by the way, it can't see me, but I'm sure it can hear me. Immediately, I heard it run back the other way - like it was misleading me purposely. I quickly stepped back the other direction and it stopped to stare at me again for a long time. This time it was saying "HAHA! I'm not telling you how I'm getting in! Na na na na boo boo!"


Then suddenly, it jumped to a shelf and behind some storage boxes and disappeared. I have to give the squirrel credit! You can't say animals are stupid! I think I will let another highly intelligent creature scare it out of the basement. My cat would love to have some play time!