rat in the garage

so last night around 1am I went out to the garage to take some stuff down there (we are in the middle of some remodeling) and I was walking across the floor - barefoot and pyjamas - and felt something dash across my foot

I turned the light on and there was a rat sitting by the cabinet. i just about freaked out. it wasn't even a huge rat either

now, I am in no way afraid of anything outside, i have caught mice, snakes, rattlers, frogs, toads, you name it with my bare hands - and i obviously handle rats and mice weekly to feed my animals.

but for some reason, coming across one randomly - or being caught off guard by one made me feel totally out of control. i nearly dropped the box i was carrying.

has this ever happened to anyone else?

Yup! I know what you are talking about. Last week I found a little hole in my dogs food bag. Moved it and a few days later while sitting at my computer I saw a mouse run in to my room. I just froze up and just watched it run by. Startled me pretty good!
I put down some snap traps and got him.

Yeah, it's happened to me. I get startled very easily...even by stuff that would normally not trigger any fear response at all.


Once, when I still lived at home with my folks (LOOOONG time ago!) I was walking out the door into the garage. The moment I stepped over the threshold I heard a really loud hissing sound. Looked down and just a couple inches from my foot was a HUGE possum!! I think we freaked each other out in equal measures!

(A friend caught it for us and released it on some wooded property he owned.)

yeah I to get spooked easy....we had a frog sitting on the door handle in the garage and when I came in and went to grab the handle I saw him there and freaked lol. And I love frogs! :P

I also was out walking my greyhound one night and I heard something from the wooded fields next to us, well I moved over a little because what little light our outside light makes was blocked by my shadow....right when I moved this little bunny came out and sort of made a snapping hissing noise...I've never ran so fast in my life...of coarse my hound was all about chasing it. :rolleyes:

yea in my friends basement about 2 or 3 weeks ago it flooded out from rain and a cracked water line. he kept the door open to the basement pretty much all the time during the day. one nite we were watchin tv or playin ps2 or something and we heard scratching inside his trash can, well we didnt know it was coming from inside his trash can for like 2 hours. then we finally went over to investigate. there were 4 field mice in the trash can freaked us out at first, but then we were like aww look how cute they are and now we have 4 field mice as pets. im sure that there r more since the one just had babies!!! now im not gonna feed these to my bp no way shape or form they are wild animals so who knows what is inside of them parasites fertilizers or other. because my friends dad said why dont u feed them to monty and we told him we can't because they were wild caught and because they could wind up killing him in the long run.