The Mouse
Several days ago I was being good and moving some things out of the house into the garage for storage. While doing this I had the door open to the garage, as I was going in and out. No big deal, right? The big garage door was closed so my cats couldn’t get outside, it was only for a few minutes so the house wasn’t losing too much heat or anything.
Later that night I’m on the computer and my mom is sitting in the recliner. The cat goes running past all helter-skelter and slides into the bookshelf. “What was that?!” mom says. I shrug, “cat is chasing a toy.” Then I saw something, too, dashing across the living room and into the kitchen under the washing machine. Oh shit. There’s a mouse in the house.
Now this is a problem for one very specific reason: I don’t kill things. If you know anything about me you know that I am very soft-hearted towards animals, I have a history of volunteering for different animal causes, and yes that even applies to mice. They are cute little furry creatures. In my childhood I owned a hamster and some gerbils, I have experience with rodents. Mostly I just can’t bear the thought of me killing something that was simply unfortunate enough to get stuck in my house. I just want to catch it and move it back outside.
Unfortunately I also have the aforementioned cat. Two of them, actually, but one is quite fat and snores loudly, so I kind of figured he wasn’t going to be much of a threat to the mouse. But Jojo? Yeah. He’s going to catch that mouse.
I had some plans of capturing the mouse under a container, but I discovered that there are a lot of hard to reach places a mouse can hide in my kitchen. Washer and dryer, range, fridge, freezer, the list goes on. I can’t even move them. Basically I was just stuck scratching my head.
Later that evening I hear the cats making noise, pouncing, scratching type noise. (I can immediately tell what is going on in my house just from a quick sound. I assume I got this superpower from being a mom. It comes in quite handy with the kids.) So I run in there and Merlin – the fat cat – has jumped on top of the mouse. He seems equal parts giddy as hell and stunned. I push him off the mouse, which immediately runs into a box. YES! This is exactly what I wanted! It’s trapped in the box! Except it ricochets off the bottom of the box and leaps out… right in front of Jo. Who immediately grabs it in his mouth. I’m yelling and hitting the cat, the cat tries running off but has nowhere to go, the mouse is squeaking. He loses his grip and the mouse runs away into a corner. My heart is racing, Jo looks totally tweaked on drugs or something as he prowls around looking for the mouse. I’m saying “Shit! Shit!” and stomping my feet because I can’t find the damn thing. But neither can the cat. I worry that the mouse is injured. Shit, an injured mouse loose in my house is even worse than a live healthy one. What if it’s suffering? What if it dies under something? Shit, shit.
I wake up in the morning scared I’m going to find a dead carcass somewhere. I do not. Later on the cat repeats his performance and I’m still trying to figure out what the hell to do. It gets away again, but I have the same worry about it being injured. Clearly the cat can and will catch this mouse, and clearly I can’t even when I’m standing right there. I’d order a live mouse trap but I have a very strong suspicion this mouse will not survive the two days until it gets delivered.
Third time it happens I open the front door and chase the cat out. This time if he lets it go it will escape outside, where I want it; it’s easier to catch a cat outside than to catch a mouse inside. If it’s alive still. I got a look before they went out – it didn’t look good. I’m pretty sure Jo was not going to give up this time. I go get a broom then try getting him to let it go. I fail. It’s dark. I hear noises I really don’t want to hear. The whole thing just grossed me out so bad. My cat ate the damn mouse. I’m all pissed off and upset. I know that’s what cats do, but ugh.
Now the cat is acting all puffed up like he’s king of the damn jungle, yowling at the door wanting to be let outside to go rule his kingdom. Tough shit, cat. Go take a nap on the couch. I’m sure you’re exhausted after committing murder.
At least my house no longer has a mouse in it.
When I had 3 cats, that is how I would ‘catch’ mice, lizards, large bugs, etc. that would somehow get in – let the cat catch it, then pick the cat up and hurry it outside. The cat would drop it and it would run/fly away. But do it the first time the cat gets it, before it gets batted around by the cats a few hours.
If you can believe it, this is the first mouse we’ve ever had in the house. I was unprepared. lol Now I know what to do if it ever happens again!
We have six (6!) rescued stray feral cats. The mama kept having babies, we kept catching them and taking them to the pound…except for the one we gave my mom. But we now live with my mom, so now she’s our cat too. And except for the two boys we kept from one litter because my husband fell in love with them. And then we caught the mama cat! And took her to our vet to be spayed. But she was already pregnant again! And then she had kittens in our closet. We tried to give those two boys away, we really did, but when babies are born in your closet, it’s hard not to keep them. We figured the mama cat would go back outside once her babies were weaned at 8 months, but she likes the sofa and likes all those meals we provide, so she stayed in. And suddenly we have six cats. Who were feral. So they are excellent hunters.
The only girl insists on going outside and she’s a great hunter, bringing my mom presents all the time. Our alpha male sneaks out, especially at the change of season, so he also goes out. He’s not much of a hunter, though, more of a territory-supervisor.
The mama cat is an awesome hunter and after she makes a kill, she yowls piercingly to call her babies to come eat. Since she’s an indoor cat, the only thing she hunts are her toys. Every time she catches one, (and let’s face it, stuffed mice aren’t a big challenge!) she YOWLS to tell us she won. We tell her thank you and she eventually stops shrieking.
When I first had my kitten…errrr, baby….the mama cat would bring her toy mice to my baby. She knew we had a human kitten and she wanted to help me feed her, the way I had helped feed her kittens with canned food. She is a super mama.
OMG that is so sweet! I mean, the yowling would be incredibly annoying – Jo has been walking around yowling for a few days now, ever since his big kill – but bringing the mice to the baby is just such a motherly thing. Awww. How come I don’t have sweet cats?!