THE GREAT GERBIL ESCAPE

Yesterday, I was getting ready to leave to run an errand. The boys were home from school. Hampton called me to come here - very nonchalantly. I said no - you come here then I noticed he was in Austin's room staring at the gerbil cage. He said again - come here. I went in and he said he could not find Peppermint. He was not upset but confused. I opened the cage and searched through it and sure enough - no gerbil. There was a tube at the top of the cage that we put up to block a hole. The tube was on the floor. Austin said he noticed it but did not think anything about it. We never thought that the gerbil could crawl to the top of the cage and push the tube out and escape. But she did. This was at 11:00 am and we know she had been out at least an hour but probably alot longer.

We proceeded to crawl around the floor of the entire house looking in every corner and under every furniture piece. I did not think there was any way we would ever find a tiny, fast moving gerbil. But I did find her under the couch in the bonus room. The next challenge was to catch her. She was under the couch and we tried to scare her out on the one side. She would come out and when we moved even a smidgen she would duck back under. We tried blocking the sides and leaving only a hole but that didn't work. We eventually turned the couch over so she could not hide under it and trapped her in a corner and finally caught her. Thanks to Emerson and his gerbil catching expertise.

I taped up the holes and covered them with cardboard. There is no way she can escape that way again. But I am still checking on her every chance I get. This can not happen again. It was 2 hours of panic, stress, and fustration that I don't want to go through again.