Mittens and her new friend. Or "Where was Mittens all night?"

[bakerjw]

Last night, my wife came to bed and asked if I'd seen Mittens. She had not gotten all uppity and loud around feeding time which is very unusual for her. My wife surmised that she was laying in an open window doing the cat thing of watching everything that moves.

This morning, we didn't get the 5:00AM wakeup call which was also very unusual. I got up to make coffee and there was also none of the "Trill loudly and try to trip John while he makes coffee because he's not feeding me fast enough" activity. She eventually came when I called her but she had ZERO interest in food and disappeared soon after I started getting it ready.

I checked around the house and couldn't find her anywhere which led me to the basement where she came happily bounding to my feet. It was then that I discovered the reason for her sudden disappearance and lack of interest in where we were or what we were doing.

Mittens had found a friend. By friend, I mean one very plump mouse. Her new friend was unharmed but obviously quite shaken at having been a play toy for Mittens for the last several hours. I swear the mouse was looking at me with an expression of "Please make it stop!!!"

So, mister or misses mouse was put into a small tub and released outside where they sat for quite a while before scurrying away. Mittens seemed none the worse for the wear at the loss of a real live toy and headed upstairs to gobble down her food and take up a perch in a window somewhere.

All this means is that I will pay for it tomorrow morning for sure.

[contender1]

Releasing mice outdoors in the immediate vicinity of where you caught it, will allow it to re-enter the home. Due to disease concerns, as well as the issues mice cause,, it should have been dispatched.

Mittens obviously was doing her job,, catching in "intruder" to her domain. And just because she may have wanted to play,, I'm sure the mouse wasn't enjoying the play time! :D

Mittens may not like the fact you took away her playmate,,,!

[lightman]

Thats funny! Its good to hear that Mittens has settled in and taken command!

[bakerjw]

I know I should have "dispatched" the mouse but I didn't want to start the day off that way. I'll have traps out later today with cat blockades in place. If it chooses to come back it the problem will resolve itself.

[gwpercle]

I've had to "rescue" a couple lucky play toy's over the years ... most times the toy's don't get so lucky . I have a sneaking suspicion after a play toy gets saved and released ... he has no interest in going back into a house with this big mouse catching machine in there .
Next time ... he may NOT get so lucky .

We had a cat named " Killer " ... he kept three houses on our block rodent free and earned that name honestly ... only cat I've ever seen that would hunt and kill Snakes ... I miss him and my two neighbors , who had all the snakes + rats from a drainage ditch , really miss him . They attended Killers funeral and I think shed a few tears !
Gary

[DougGuy]

A cat I once owned, a very smart and quite literate cat, caught a hairless little baby mouse kit and brought it into the living room in his teeth, unhurt, as if to say "what am I supposed to do with this? It can't run and it's too small to play with."

GF at the current time gave it one of those rodent houses with the colorful tunnels and exercise wheel, and fed it. The cat, Bocephus, took quite the interest in the progress the little mouse made, we called it "Critter" and if you ask Bocephus "Where's Critter?" He would go over to the cage and put his paw on the cage and look back at us like "He's right here, see how smart I are?"

He knew about 20 words and would respond individually to each one. He knew his toys by name and would go fetch the appropriate toy if you asked him "Bocephus, where's ______?" << name of toy.

Some cats kill by predatory instinct, others are just curious.

[ryanmattes]

We have barn cats. There used to be a stable on the property behind us, and they leased the back 10 acres to pasture horses. But the stable shut down and moved, leaving all the barn cats behind.

They were never pet cats anyway, but I felt bad for them, so when they came around I'd feed them. The big tom of the neighborhood has taken up residence with us. He sleeps in our garage most nights, so we put a cat bed out there for him.

Not only does he keep the area free of rodents, other male cats, and even dogs (my two pit mixes are terrified of him), I watched him chase a coyote off. It came through "his" yard one evening, and he trotted out there like "I know you know better than that!" People who see him prowling through the pasture ask if he's a bobcat.

He's always injured from fighting. I treat his injuries how I can, how he'll let me, and I deworm and flea treat him regularly, but he is definitely a wild cat. But he likes us, and will come in and rub on our legs, and even tolerate up picking him up sometimes.

I'd fix him and bring him inside, but I just can't bring myself to do it. He's the king of this area, big and built like he's made of brick.

Here he is, napping, with an injury from fighting something or other on his cheek. One of my kids named him Richard Nixon for some reason, and it stuck, so Nixon is his name.

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[NEKVT]

Rodent control around my cabin this winter was provided by a real bobcat. Arriving one day I saw its tracks coming out from under the cabin (up on piers) and down through the front yard to the road. After the bears go down I put up suet cages behind the cabin that I refill whenever I'm up there in winter. That day while refilling the closest to the cabin I could see where the mice had come out from under the snow and scampered around under the suet. There was a set of bobcat tracks coming from a thicket, across an opening and behind the tree line the cages are on. Then I could clearly see two front leg and claw impressions with one for the jaws in between where it pounced on a mouse. It took the tidbit under the cabin before making the exit tracks I saw earlier. Didn't see any more mouse tracks in fresh snow for the several days while I was there. Next visit there was another set of tracks coming out from under the cabin but no sign of a kill. Any mice I catch inside are put on a stump beside that thicket for the first critter lucky enough to come by and are usually gone in the morning.

[bakerjw]

MORE TO THE STORY...

I come home from work around noon and tend to take a nap with Mittens before logging in to work for the afternoon. Today, I was back in my recliner with my Kindle when my wife comes up to get some clothes. Now please understand that Mittens has small toy mice which are white, gray and black. Mittens also will go downstairs and bring then to the room to play on occasion. It is not unusual to find 2 or 3 scattered around the room each morning.
So, as my wife goes to the closet, her foot brushes a gray mouse. NOT a toy mouse but a small dead mouse. Apparently Mittens had killed one over night and brought it up to play with in the room before going to get another victim.
Crazy little animal....

[john.k]

My shelter cat went missing for a week about two months after I got him......but I suspect the hunting wasnt good,and he came back hungry......he doesnt play with mice, insects,lizzards,snakes or anything else ....its straight down the hatch.....one kind of very large brown moth seems to knock him out for hours,but he still eats them......He seems to have been trapped at the kitten stage ,and hadnt learned to take birds.......nothing riles the neighbours like seeing a cat carry in a dead bird across their back yard.

[quilbilly]

The weirdest thing our tomcat brought into the house before we knew it late one night was a flying squirrel. When I saw it hanging off there curtain rod eyeing the cat, my thought was "Where did that cat catch a lemur?" They are nocturnal with huge eyes that look like a lemur's in National Geographic. He was rescued and sent on his way to eat lichens in the maple tree tops.

[3006guns]

If you ever get the chance, listen to Phil Harris' song "The Persian Kitten"..........about a fluffy, spoiled, dainty little thing that went "out" for a completely different reason.

.........and came back smiling with content. It's a good laugh.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

My cat likes to play with baby bunnies, she will usually get 30 minutes of play before the batteries run out.

[MaryB]

Tigger used to bring me mice in bed... LIVE. He would burrow under the blanket then let it go... yeah much swearing would ensue and I swear that cat was laughing at me when he did it!

[john.k]

yes ,that reminds me,my old Tiger would bring in rats and snakes and let them go in the lounge,and then enjoy the hours of excitement as furniture was shifted ,and things ran from one hiding place to another....that was more than ten years ago,nearly forgotten the trauma of going to work on four hours sleep.......The cat was an absolute expert at concealing his catch,and was always checked out at a window before being let in,and he d still manage to bring in a rat or snake and let it go.I surely hope the new cat doesnt do that ,because Im now over 70.

[Wag]

One of my little chihuahua's kills and eats mice. Another kills and eats birds. Even some larger birds like pigeons and doves. The dogs aren't quiet, either and they have tags so I'm not sure how the heck the one catches the birds.

And occasionally, they'll bring half a dead lizard into the house to play with. Crazy dogs.

--Wag--

[Mr_Sheesh]

One place I lived had tree rats (pack rats). VERY pesky, they kept invading my living space. One oopsed and crawled inside a bug zapper, I hear CRACKCRACKCRACK crack crack crack, go look, and it's dead as a doornail... Unplugged the zapper for the night LOL

Reason it crawled in there was that the Torti I had back then, was a little bored some nights, unless a nice play toy showed up to entertain her; If that happened, she would trill as she tracked it down, bring the corpse to the entry to my bedroom, trill loud and long to get me to wake up and watch, then delicately dismantle the thing, pulling its fur off and eating it. She was lethal as all get out.

I wasn't displeased, all things considered, only good rat is a dead one...