The mystery of what the dog rolled in has been solved.
He asked to be let out again about half an hour ago and came in stinking again. That prompted Dave and I to go out and see if we could find what he'd been wallowing in. We came in empty handed.
Jake was the one who found it. He came in and announced his findings:
"it's a mole. A dead one. It's all slimy n' stuff"
I went back out to see, and sure enough, there it was. In a pile of dead leaves beside my rose bush (I left them there as partial protection from frost - it was either them on newspaper) there was a little mole carcass, partially liquified. One of those little bastards that had been tearing up the lawn last summer had finally met it's demise, and Henry had been rolling in it's rotting flesh.
The question now is: did Henry kill it sometime in the past and then conceal it, or did it make it's way there of it's own accord and Henry just now found it today?
Hmm. I'd like to give him credit for killing it, but I'm not sure that it was him. It could have been the cat, she's caught moles before (she left me one in the kitchen window flower bed last year). Hmmm.
I guess we'll never know how it came to be there. It's gone now, in a garbage bag inside another garbage bag, both tied tightly so no smell will escape and attract passing critters.
Poor Henry's had to get 2 baths in a single day (and he still smells faintly of dead things), and his harness that he wears when he's outside is soaking in pine sol and hot water. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get the smell out, so Henners might have to get a new one.
Liquifing mole. Ick.