Another mouse.

[LWolf]

DAMNIT.

Last week I finally caught the last live "gift," after 6 weeks of infesting the house.

My cat has a custom "kitty" door in the window above my desk to my left. And a bed and food dish on top of the filing cabinet on my right. She just came through the window and jumped on to my keyboard with a live mouse in her mouth. While I was trying to decide if she would drop the mouse when I grabbed her, she jumped up to the top of the filing cabinet and set the mouse down in her food dish. The mouse promptly took off; jumped down onto the computer table and behind the filing cabinet. The cat is now frantically running back and forth, from one side of the cabinet to the other, trying to flush the mouse out.

WHY CAN'T THEY KILL THE PREY BEFORE THEY BRING IT INTO THE HOUSE?

Okay; now she's given up. She's eating breakfast, and the mouse is free to set up housekeeping.

:grr:

[Spinzonner]

1. She's a hunter, not a killer

and besides the mouse doesnt come in as many nice flavors as the cat food..

If you want to kill mice, get a mousetrap, not a cat.

[LWolf]

3. I have lots of mouse traps.

She often eats her prey, but always brings it in to do so. She's hard on the carpet. I think the live "gifts" are toys to play with later. Either that, or she's trying to teach me to hunt. My traps are 10 miles away in my tackroom; I've scored 5 or 6 mice with them in the last week. I'll have to bring one home again for this little bugger.

[soothsayer]

2. We've had a RAT population explosion in Northern VA thanks to the

17 year locusts (0k, cicadas). Apparently the rats (all animals, really) LOVED them, and all started big families based on this great food source. Now they're all over the place in people's yards. They're actually kinda cute---brown/gray, with big mouselike eyes (not beady at all). Fast as whips, too. But....rats nonetheless.

Be happy you only have a mouse in the house!

[Spinzonner]

4. Ah, the circle of life ...

[LWolf]

6. We have a large locust population this year.

Our local rat is plenty cute. Slow and dumb, too. You can practically catch them barehanded. They don't infest buildings, though.

The desert kangaroo rat:

[demnan]

5. Lily used to bring them and hide them

and drop them on the bed in the middle of the night. I think she was trying to teach me to hunt. Mother cats teach their kittens to hunt that way, by bringing in live prey.

The mouse will crawl into some place where you can't get it out and will die. You will be able to retrieve it then. Sad for the mouse, but that is a cat for you.

[LWolf]

7. I had that happen once.

My previous cat. She came through the kitty door in my then-bedroom and jumped onto the bed. I woke up enough to hear the door and feel her land on the bed. She crawled under the covers. She crawled back out, and began leaping around on the covers. I felt little feet scurry over my legs. She'd turned the mouse loose under the covers, and was happily pouncing on it. I screamed--the only time I've ever needed to scream for a mouse--and flung the covers back. The mouse went flying through the air and landed in the closet. A 30 minute romp ensued, with kitty and I chasing, and mouse escaping. We never caught it, but she sure enjoyed the "lesson!"