Francis, our Spiderer

Our biggest pest since becoming Arizona homeowners have been these guys. Not that we get a lot of pests, but we see at least 5 of these guys a year (IN our house)! So tonight I'm walking across the floor and I see something move out of the corner of my eye and I quickly dance/jump/tiptoe forward. Looking back, I think I ran from nothing... but then I glimpse it.

Though they blend into the carpet a little too well, I see the guy.  But I don't really know what to do about it--because Matt already went to bed and I HATE squashing anything, let alone things of a decent squashing-size.  (Matt asks me what I would do if I were single, but the fact is, I'm not single anymore so now I'm handicapped as to performing my own giant-creature squashing.)  So Matt's in bed, but luckily, we have a dog now.  And what's a pet for, if not to kill the creepy-crawlies that make it into your house?

So I get Francis and try to direct her to the spider--at this point it's under a desk in the corner.  First Francis, of course, has eyes only for me.  But eventually I get her to look over long enough while the spider moves or makes a smell or does something to finally get her notice.  And then she can barely see the thing.  So my dog is not the most excellent spider-er.  (But she's learning!)

For the first few minutes, I have to point the spider out to her over and over or use the water bottler I'm holding to coerce it her way.  After a bit, it starts crawling between the stones at the base of our fireplace, and I watch and listen as Francis tries to sniff it out.  She snaps between the stones here and there, but comes back with nothing.

More minutes go by and now we're back to the corner.  Francis continues to sniff and snap at it, but I guess the spider is holding its own.  And then her jaws close and she's leaving the corner!  She carries the spider across the room, jumps onto the couch and sets it down on the pad.  The spider starts to scamper away and she snaps it up again.  And at this point I feel a little guilty, because I think the spider bites her in the mouth.  :(  Hopefully that won't amount to anything.

So she's playing with the spider on the couch now and it's continuing to live.  So I hope it's debilitated enough not to crawl back out of the vacuum cleaner and, yes, go get the vacuum.  So I vacuum up the spider.  And though Francis watches me do it, she isn't sure where the spider went and spends the next five minutes sniffing around for it.  But... hopefully... she has the scent now and will be on guard as our resident spiderer.