If you are troubled by the presence of mice, the kind that don't communicate with your computer, and you don't have a mouse-catching cat in your household, then you probably are in search of a mouse elimination method that is safe for use around dogs. Likewise if you have a problem with rats, you almost certainly want to be rid of them. Both mice and rats can be a source of Leptospirosis , which infects dogs and humans. Mice can be a source of Hanta virus, which infects humans. Rats , as we should all know, are a source of Plague, also known as The Black Death.
Ordinary mousetraps risk snapping on an inquisitive nose or paw unless placed totally out of reach of your dogs (and cats, if any). Ordinary rat traps are dangerous to any size of dog and likewise to curious children, and indeed I am always afraid of catching my own fingers in these traps.
Poison can be a lethal danger, whether obtained first hand by eating the bait or second hand by eating the dead rodent, and thus is an unacceptable risk to your dogs and other pets .
Glue traps are effective for mice and are safe for dogs and cats , though they might get caught up in a dog's coat , especially the Bouvier beard, and they are rather inhumane to the mouse. I have found that glue traps do not work very well for rats , although others report better results with them. (By the way, if a glue trap lands glue side down on your floor, you can un-stick it by repeated applications of any type of cooking oil, which will act as a solvent. The same should work for a glue trap caught on your dog's hair.)
The Victor "Quick SetTM" mousetrap seems to me to be reasonably safe for all but small dogs (who might insert a paw or nosetip into the trap's business end). I'm not so sure it would be safe for use around cats, as they like to fish their paws into everything. The trap is set by squeezing the end at the top of the "V" , thus opening and setting the business end at the bottom of the "V". When a mouse is caught, you can re-open the trap with your hand or , if you are more fastidious, with a kitchen tong (in upper right of picture). Then the trap can be re-set. If you set the trap right at the junction of floor and wall, you will be setting it right on the path that the mice travel, and thus will be most likely to catch a mouse. When set on a mouse pathway, the trap is fairly succesful even without any bait. If you do use bait, I suggest peanut butter smeared onto the plastic body of the trap, not on the trigger portion. The trap trigger is so sensitive that the weight of bait set on the trigger will prevent the trap from remaining set, ie will spring the trigger. Even though I consider this trap relatively safe for medium to large dogs, I still suggest placing it as much out of reach of all your pets as possible, and likewise out of reach of children.
The Quick Set mousetraps come in packages of 2 traps for $5, which is about twice the cost of ordinary mousetraps, but well worth it and cost effective as the traps are more readily re-used than the ordinary mousetrap.
Rats :
Unfortunately the Quick Set mousetrap does not come in an equivalent Quick Set rat-trap. However I have found that "The Black Hole®" , which is intended for gophers, works very well for rats. There is another Victor product "The Black BoxTM" that is intended for moles and gophers. Of the two , I prefer the Black Hole. Both products act to garrot the rat or gopher with a wire that is triggered by a trip plate inside the trap.
For more information about Victor traps, see <www.victorpest.com>.
Of course another way to keep your home free of mice and rats is to add almost any of the small rodent-killing Terriers to your pack, eg a Jack Russell or a Border Terrier. A Terrier will probably be more compatible with your Bouviers than a cat as not all Bouvier will let a cat live in peace. But remember that owners of these Terriers do not refer to them as "terrorists" just to make a good joke !
