Mouse In The House--Gotcha!

Guess what's in here?

I'm spending my teacher furlough day  at my mom's house in Blairsville waiting on a plumber to come and fix the water pressure.  So that I could be here in time for the appointment, I arrived late yesterday and spent the night.  When I got up this morning, I discovered what looked like mouse droppings covering the kitchen counter and was of course quite concerned and nervous about the critter that might have left them and how on earth I was going to catch him.  As I'm cleaning up the counter and preparing my morning coffee, I notice that my daughter's dog, Shady, is sniffing around and quite interested in a cooler that is sitting on the floor.  I had used the cooler to bring some food to the house and after storing the food in the refrigerator, I wiped out the cooler and left it sitting on the floor with the lid propped open so it would dry out.  Now I notice that the lid is closed.   I put together all the clues;  mouse droppings, sniffing dog, cooler top closed when it was previously open...  it seems too incredible to be true, but when I open the cooler very carefully and peer inside, I find... the mouse trapped there! I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!

I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but I think I may have discovered the newest most creative way to catch critters...  Here's another example that actually happened at my house last year, when my daughter was taking her dog out. She noticed Shady was extremely interested in the recycling bin that we kept outside near the trash can. She was sniffing and barking excitedly (sound familiar?). Upon closer inspection, my daughter realized that a baby possum had somehow crawled inside the bin and then couldn’t get out. She called to tell me about it at work. My comment? “I didn’t know we were recycling possums.”

So what are the common factors in each of these TRUE stories?  Sniffing dog, plastic containers, trapped critters... yep, I think I might just be on to something.  Here's the problem, of all the creative ways to make a living that I have conceived of in my lifetime... capturing critters isn't even on the radar.  Can anyone top these critter stories?  Just wondering...