Our remaining boy-kitten found a new toy today!

[conuly]

It was gray and furry and every time he let go of it it ran off on its own - he didn't have to bat it across the floor!

This, of course, was the fatal (or not so fatal, really) error. The cat got a little too cocky and the mouse slipped out of his grasp and into a crack twixt wall and floor, leaving Sandy (aka "Boy-boy", don't ask me why) utterly perplexed.

I maybe shouldn't've laughed (I definitely shouldn't've laughed, now that thing is in the house, and from what I could see the cat didn't even have the sense to give it a good bite first!) but it was positively comical, the look on his face! He just couldn't figure out how this had happened!

Next time maybe he'll kill it first and play with it after, which is the sensible order of things. Honestly, prior to its loss I'd been considering the propriety of putting a coffee can over the poor mousie and letting it go outside. It'd've disappointed the cat, but it would've been bound to have been nicer to the mouse.

Still, there are three cats up here and two in the downstairs apartment, one of whom is a rescued feral kitten and presumably more than competent at this killing gig. Any mouse dumb enough to sneak in here really deserves what they get, don't you think?

Comments

If you do end up doing the coffee-can dance,

[marveen.livejournal.com]

don't let it go in the yard, it'll come right back in the house. Take it several blocks away before releasing. (Or you could dab some nail polish on its fur and see how long it takes for it to come back inside. People using livetraps have reported cases where the mouse damn near beat the human back indoors.)

Our house here is as leaky as so many sieves regarding rodent access, but we have no mouse problem. Must be the cats. (They are the Mighty Hunters and catch squirrels/shrews/voles/birds on a regular basis.)

Re: If you do end up doing the coffee-can dance,

[conuly]

I always walk down to the third nearest park to release them if I have that sympathy. (Excepting the one stuck on the glue trap, because it was damn cold.) It's not all that popular, and there's a wooded area, so nobody is likely to notice me doing this.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Camilla, my special needs cat (standard disclaimer: she genuinely has a congenital problem with her tiny little brain and requires more supervision than your average cat in matters like eating and not dying) once killed a mouse, by sheer accident as far as anyone can tell. She grabbed it by the neck and trotted in to introduce it to me, and was puzzled to find it had exsanguinated on the way.