This morning Baby Bear and I got caught in a drenching downpour while out on our walk. When we got back to the house, I just wanted to go in, but Baby Bear wanted to stay out, he was looking under the deck. I have a fenced back yard, so I left him out there while I went in. When I went to the door to check on him a few minutes later, he was away from the deck, out in the yard playing with a mouse.
He was patting the mouse with his paw, exactly the same way he does with his toys. I called him and, good boy, he left the mouse and came to me. The mouse took off running back under the deck as soon as Baby Bear's attention turned to me. It didn't seem to be hurt (no doubt it was scared out of it's mind). Once Baby Bear was inside I started drying him off and I found that his belly was caked with mud, as has happened before when he crawls under the deck. So I'm thinking, he saw the mouse under the deck and crawled under to get it, chased the thing out, and then went to play with it.
What I can't figure is what Baby Bear was thinking. Did he think this was a toy that moved? Or did he realize the mouse was alive and was treating it like his doggie friends (he has canine friends as big as a Bernese Mt. Dog and as small as a Fox Terrier)? His prey drive wasn't activated when the mouse took off running because he continued coming to my call (or training has paid off more than I expected). And he clearly could have killed the mouse with one bite, or even a hard step (I could see that his paw was twice the size of the mouse).
Aside from being grossed out that there's a mouse (or mice) under my deck, I just don't know quite what to make of Baby Bear's reaction.