Not sure yet, but I'm *armed* and ready to try! Nah, I'm not bored with winter...much.

I'm getting ready to do battle, and after checking out and discarding the idea of BB and Pellet guns (that look too real to suit me, and might actually draw blood ), here's what I decided on -



Looks really scary, doesn't it?

Now I wish I still had a dog. The two applied simultaneously would be a really fine deterrent...for both the squirrels and the neighbor's chickens!

That is mean-looking! A sound cannon?

Once upon a time, I bought a slingshot so I could chase away squirrels and deer.

The squirrels were too fast to hit, especially when I shot big, light pine cones at them.

I never found it in my heart to shoot at the deer, but then I didn't have gardens at that house!

It reminds me of a discussion I had with another senior software engineer about making the less-experienced members of the team comply with mandated procedures and code standards.

I suggested cattle prods, but that horrified the other senior software engineer.

"Rick! I'm shocked! We have modern software development tools and techniques that render the old methods completely obsolete. If ya knock a guy down with a cattle prod, he gets right back up and keeps violating standards. Now, hit him with a TAZER and he STAYS down a wile and learns his lesson. Yes, as a forward-looking development shop using proven methodologies for safety-critical software, we should be using automated shock collars based on Tazers!"

" automated shock collars based on Tazers!"

There could be a good secondary market for those in child-size...

Chelle, is that a ping-pong ball gun? and why is it called a K-9 Kannon, is it intended for shooting at dogs? Oh, wait -- I just looked again, maybe a tennis ball gun, for dogs to chase the balls? I need one of those, I can't throw very well anymore! or maybe I could just practice throwing...

I thought the same thing. First Ping-Pong balls and then tennis balls.

That particular one shoots small tennis "type" balls a little larger than a ping pong ball. There is a larger version that shoots full size tennis balls. It is meant to shoot ball out for the dog to retrieve.

Yep, Jay has it right. It's a dog toy...but it has a decent range that's fairly accurate, and at 6 and change, the price was very right.

Too funny, Rick.

chelle said:Yep, Jay has it right. It's a dog toy...but it has a decent range that's fairly accurate, and at 6 and change, the price was very right.

Too funny, Rick.

That was the after Christmas 50% off clearance price.

That's right. I just picked it up today while I was out for groceries.

They now have sling shots with laser sites. I don't have one, but it wouldn't bother me a bit to hit a deer in the rump.

Good grief, I had to nudge one out of the road with my car so that I could go to town the other day. Dang deer just stood in the middle of the road and watched me drive right up to it and didn't even move an inch.

Smiles,
Lyn

Great price!

We had a moldy tennis racket that had kept some tension despite being old enough that tennis was probably played with rocks when it was built.

We used the tennis racket to tire our Labrador retriever out. Hit her tennis ball three times, and she was so tired she would shut up for 30 minutes until she wanted to play again.

Rick ...

My Dad did the same thing with my brother's lab. Dad had MS and my brother left his dog at home when he left for college. If Toby was not exercised, he'd drive everyone crazy.

Dad had it set up so that he'd sit on a chair in the driveway and bat the ball down hill and Toby would race after it. When Toby was just about crawling up the hill to return the ball, Dad would call it quits for the day ...

Smiles,
Lyn

I remember doing that, too! May yet have that tennis racket around here someplace...and it was already old 30+ years ago!

Great story, Lyn.

A laser-sight slingshot sounds pretty neat, too.

Lyn, and here I thought I lived in a wild place... the only time I ever "nudged" a deer out of the way I was going about 35 miles an hour, going around a curve, when one ran out in front of me at top speed. That little episode didn't end very well for either the deer or my vehicle

Sandy ...

Good advice ...

If I were driving at a normal speed, I'd just hit the dang deer rather than taking a chance of falling off of the mountain ...

Everyone I know up here has had at least one vehicle-deer encounter. The rule is just hit it.

In this case, I had just pulled out of my driveway and the deer was just standing in the road. I wasn't even going fast enough to register on the speedometer. I live on a dead end road and there was no one behind me and I just coasted up to the deer. It did NOT move until my bumper nudged her. I certainly wasn't going to speed up and smash her, but I wanted to ... I am soooo tired of deer and the problems these beautiful animals cause.

I live in an old gold mining town that was established back in the 1850. The town itself is just a wide spot on the highway. 75% of the County is federal property, so the population is really quite small and spread out. Plenty of area for the deer to thrive, but they like living in town, too.

Neither the deer nor my car were even slightly damaged.

Smiles,
Lyn

I just had the first opportunity to try my tennis ball flinging device...I'm a lousy shot. The ball sailed right over the squirrel's posterior with a couple of inches to spare! Now I just need to remember to dig my ammo out of the snow when I go out later to do chores.

A cursory look at dusk didn't yield my spent shot, so it's a good thing I bought spares.

The good news is...even though I missed the target, the scare tactic was effective. The squirrel didn't return to the feeder today.

Believe me, Chelle, those squirrels will quickly learn you are a rotten shot and will go out of their way to antagonize you. They love the "games" we play with them, trying to outsmart them at every turn!

All this talk of shooting non-lethal projectiles at squirrels reminded me of something I learned about on the weapons range during re-qualification one year.
The real thing is probably too expensive so here is a link for something you can build in your spare time; you may need to scale it down for the size of your 'prey'.

http://www.instructables.com/i...

Very interesting, Greene.

I don't want them so bad that I'd actually have to handle them though. If I were to go that route I think I'd just use the live trap. I'm not that good of a builder anyway, and shattered hard-plastic shards, if dropped, doesn't sound like much fun either.