Interlude with Wildlife

During dinner at Steak Lao, AJ casually announced that there is a skink in the kitchen at home. He said that he had heard Gigi barking like mad and later, around noon, when he went into the kitchen, he surprised it. It was black and had two vertical stripes and a very long tail. A skink is about two feet long from pointy nose to tail. It sounded like the same visitor, or a near relative at least, that came inside our house several years ago.  Feeling a large lizard in the house was not an urgent matter, AJ puttered around the house for almost an hour. Then he locked up and went to the club to workout.

I don't need to describe my reaction. Andy was puzzled, Are you angry? Not, I said irritably. AJ pointed out, reasonably, The thing is more afraid of us than we are of it.

After dinner, Andy went back to the motor show at BITEC. Like AJ, he felt this was not his area of expertise.  But how do you get a skink out of the house?  The first time, I left the front door ajar and poured flour on the door sill. Then I went away. An hour later, slither tracks in the flour told me the creature had left the premises. So, AJ and I came home to a dark house to check on the whereabouts of our house guest. AJ turned on the lights inside.  I called Gigi,  put on her leash, and led her into the house. If the skink was in the house, Gigi would be sure to let us know. That's what she must have been barking at earlier when she had flushed it out of hiding and it ran into the house. If she found it, I was hoping to stop her from killing it by controlling the leash. No dead mutilated skinks in my house. 

Gigi calmly toured the kitchen where AJ last saw the skink. She padded around the laundry area, poked her nose in the bathroom, ignored the living room, then mounted the stairs. She wandered into the bedrooms. Like taking a long pull on a mug of ice cold beer,  Gigi took a long sniff of my sweater, my pillow, the chairs where AJ and I sit, and AJ's comforter. She completely ignored anything of Andy's. Quirky dog.  I quickly realized the skink had slipped out before AJ locked up the house and went out. AJ inquired anxiously, are you sure it's gone? I said, if the skink was still in the house, Gigi wouldn't be this relaxed;  I've seen her in prey mode before. The Mutt must have a Thai ridgeback barking up her bloodline. She's a purebred soi dog. A blueblood mongrel. Silly Mutt.