Interesting Question...Need Help

Below is a picture sent to my phone by a friend of mine. She has these vases in the shelf of a closet and has found the tall, narrow ones (10-12 inches) full of dog food. Without physically looking at the situation myself, does this behavior look familiar to anyone here. She doesn't have any other pets except 2 dogs.

I'm in Ohio here and we don't have pack rats but I have seen other Norway rats (I believe)store massive amounts of paper, etc in nesting situations but never anything like this with dog food. She hasn't seen any large accumalations of droppings but said there may be some 'mouse' droppings. Like I said, I haven't seen the situation in person though

Any ides and thanks in advance...

Interesting, but I have no clue as to what or why this might be. It does suggest rodent hoarding.

However, I do have a sarcastic streak which I will stifle for now. It is somebody elses turn anyway. The OP is rife with opportunity for those of us having a sarcastic bent.

No offense ever to the original poster.

I have seen both house mice and roof rats store dog food and other similar foodstuffs, nuts, seeds, cheerios, etc. Usually in out of the way places, drawers, in furniture, in shoes, boots, and open cans and jars. I have never seen it stored in places where it couldn’t be retrieved. It looks like retrieval from those long necked bottles would be difficult. I would suspect mice or rats. We have very few Norway rats locally. One customer had roof rats harvesting her dried oat head displays and storing them under couch cushions, behind the window drapes, and in the fireplace.

mice

flyers in my erea

yep

So the mouse or rat knows to drop the food in?By the looks of those vases if the mouse or rat climbed down it would be stuck.They are glass are they not?Just guessing here, as that seems very strange.

Any kids in the house?

I will check on the kid situation but I know she doesn't have any. Maybe nieces or nephews. The length of the vases also is what intrigued me because it seems as if nothing could physically climb on top of one. Unless there is a sleeping disorder involved where she may be doing this herself it almost seems ridiculous to me. I'm going to go there within a week and look for signs. Probably end up having her empty all the vases,leave the dog for where she stores it, and mount a trail camera in the closet or on the storage area.

Thanks for all the input fellas...

BTW Phil, fire away. I appreciate good sarcasm and humor.

She's messing with your head.

Notice only the phallic shaped vases are filled, suggesting what I don't know.

Hey Phil, aren't you proud of me? I never said a word! ( Of course, my tongue has lots of bite marks )

Am real proud of you Paul. Now if I could just find a way to stifle myself once in awhile......

Mice.specifically female mice.

Is she maybe getting a little "forgetfull"? Chicks will buy glassware and fill them up with stuff of many colors for decorations.

I have some weasel boxes on a shelf in the garage, which coincidently is where the dog food is also stored. Was going through them to make sure they all had traps in them and one of them was half full of dog food. Also found my missing bag of pea seed stock piled in another box one shelf up. dang mice!

She obviously doesn't have a husband with boots for the mice to put stuff in.

I would say chipmunks . Should be a toilet on the sill Plate of the house . If you notice there's no mice droppings

The only thing I have seen do this is red squirrels, but they did it with walnuts in early fall. It was in a basement and they had filled approx 50 vases up to the top. We set one way door traps on the crawl space vents and 24hrs later every nut was gone without any vases being knocked over. After the reds were caught we found all the nuts on top of a 10 foot section of bat insulation in the crawl space that had been stapled to the floor joists. Its very common for mice to store dog food but im like pesky, didnt see any mouse droppings in the pic and how would a mouse scale a glass vase. I reckon if you leave it and wait you will know as each vase will have a few dead mice in the bottom by spring.

I have had short tailed shrews store up dog food in containers. Set a snap trap and you will find out what it is!!!!!

This is a good thread. For every intelligent, helpful response, there is a maroon to balance things out.

So come on and catch it already. I am voting for the red sq.

Is that Color or People , maybe Newspaper? Possibly Psychology?

Phil got marooned on a desert island on that one, Ron.

Flying Squirrels do that in early winter....

It's not food she hs forgotten or someone else did it. Its colorful rocks, some other decoration or flower stabilizer. Driving down the road this came to me in a vision. Let us know the outcome and hopfully the income;-)

This whole post and its answers are way beyond my pay grade.

Catch it and show us.

Trail cam. Worth a 1000 words.

get'r to look at it with readin glasses or go see her. I think there is nothing to catch it's a decoration.

It's just downright amazing how smart people named Paul really are!