Open Wide and Say "Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh"

A few weeks ago, as we got into the warmer summer season, our cat Stitch went into hunting mode. He's a young cat, so this is his first opportunity to show us what a good hunter he is.

One night I was reading in bed when he came in, jumped up on the bed, and deposited a moth onto the quilt not too far from me. Every time the moth would try to move, Stitch would bat it with his paw. And every time the moth would try to move and Stitch would bat it, the moth would fly into me and I'd swat it away. Stitch had fun. Me? Not so much.

Same night, an hour or so later, the scene was repeated with a new victim moth. At that point, I thought it was about time to shut the sliding door and keep Stitch IN for the night.

About a week later, I was asleep when Stitch brought another moth to our bed. I had let him out early in the morning and then I'd gone back to bed and left the sliding door open enough for him to get in and out. Mistake. I'm not very good in the morning to begin with, and waking up to a moth fluttering around on me is guaranteed to make me grumpy. For whatever reason, though, the moth hunting tapered off and no more "gifts" were laid at my feet (figuratively speaking). Until tonight.

Tonight I was in the Sweat Shop, happily sewing away and "testing" out my "new" hand/wrist/arm when I heard a noise on the floor behind me. I turned to see Stitch, batting at one of those fake mouse toys. If you have cats, then you probably know what I'm talking about--they're made of fur and suede and look pretty realistic, right? I watched him for a minute, thinking he was awfully hesitant about the toy since he was just batting at it, so I figured I'd pull it away from the wall for him. I reached down and pulled the tail, but the toy didn't move. Stitch, however, seemed to lose interest and moved away, so I went back to sewing.

About a minute later, I heard Stitch again. He'd pulled the toy away from the wall a little bit, but it was half stuck behind a basket and he was still just batting at it. When I next looked, Stitch was peering under a small corner cabinet about a foot away and reaching under it with his paw. It was just about then that I thought I heard squeeking noises coming out from under the cabinet, and I realized the toy mouse WASN'T A TOY. Ewwwwww! And I'd actually pulled it by the tail too!

Okay, so how could I have NOT realized it was a real mouse? Well, it was the same size as the toy mice we have, it was kind of dark in the area where Stitch had it trapped, and even when I tried to pull on its tail, it didn't move.

After thinking about it for a minute, I realized we needed to make a new rule. NO CAT IS ALLOWED INTO THE HOUSE WITHOUT A CAVITY SEARCH. Or at least a mouth cavity search. Because now I have a mouse in my house somewhere, and it may or may not be alive.

About the time I figured the mouse was REAL, Spike decided to get involved. Stitch would stick his paw under the cabinet and Spike would sneak up and nip Stitch on the neck or head. He finally moved away and SHE took a turn trying to scoop the little rodent out.

Sadly, both cats lost interest after awhile and quit guarding the cabinet, which means that the mouse managed to sneak out and they don't know where it is OR one of them batted the mouse to death and it's still under there. Really, I don't think I have a chance in H-E-double L of finding the thing unless it's dead--it's much too small, I know those mice are FAST, and there are waaaaaay too many places for it to hide.

Darn cats.