Everyone's telling their hooved rat stories. So, I'll tell you one. We had a house in Baton Rouge parish for 6 years between Singapore and here. It backed up to a bayou, a creek that only flows when it rains a bunch, and actually had a slope down to the bayou, unlike so many completely flat lots from there to almost Austin to the west.
Well, we got lots of rain one Friday and into Saturday. I was actually watching football on the back porch. It was flooded almost up to my little raised bed garden by the overflowing bayou. I'd heard the neighbor's dog down there splashing around chasing something in the bayou while I watched. Well, my wife was yelling at me for some reason. I wandered around front and found her with the front door open. A hooved rat had crashed through one of the windows to each side of the door. The house had a U indent out front there, with the door at the base of the U.
The neighbor's good for nothing dog (who often hit school bus bumpers while chasing them) had chased the hooved rat, and it had crashed through the window.
We called the sheriff's office. They advised us to get the animal outside. So, we drug it outside. It had concussed itself up against the stairway up to the 2 bedrooms up there.
Pretty soon a fat deputy arrived. He parked in a parking area out front and walked towards the house. On the way, his radio squawked and came alive. Well, the hooved rat heard it, raised its head and probably thought, "there's the law; gotta get outta here." So, it jumped up and ran (sorta, like a drunk) around the left side of the house. The fat deputy took off after it. No contest. Drunk hooved rats beat fat deputies.
Ralph
