The us, the mice and the cats

You need to know that on Sunday I bought mouse toys for our cats.  You've seen the kind - the ones that look very much like mice.  With fur and eyes and long tails.  In our house we call them shmousies, in honor of the cat from the Mutts comics.  And just that afteroon I had given two shmousies to Daniel and Freya to play with.  Which they did, until they lost the toys under the bookcase.  

That's important to remember.

See?  Very realistic looking.

 

So I was sitting in my bed, watching Amazon on my iPad at around midnight on Sunday night.  Boys were in bed, hubby was in the living room.  I was watching the diligent detectives on Midsomer Murders when I heard a rowling sound from Freya as she entered the bedroom.  Rowling sounds from our cats usually mean they are carrying a toy in their mouth.  I'm not sure why they rowl.  Are they presenting their 'kill' to us for reward?  Or do they think we are their kittens who need feeding?

Anyway, Freya came in to the bedroom rowling.  Curious, I stood up and walked over to her.  I saw she had a grey mouse toy in her mouth, and I smiled and said to her, "you've found your lost shmousie!"  And she rowled again, and dropped the toy on the floor.

And it moved.

I'm not sure how many nanoseconds it took my brain to realize it wasn't a toy, but it was that many nanoseconds too long.  We haven't had a mouse in our house for years, so I certainly wasn't expecting one that night.

After realizing it was indeed a LIVE mouse, I froze and scanned the room for something to capture it with.  Like a bucket, or a cup I could place over the top of it.  The mouse, realizing it was free, took its chance and scurried under the dresser.  Freya dashed after it, but the space was too tight for her.  I called for my husband in the other room.  "Sweety?"  "Yes?"  "Mouse!"  "Mouse?"  "Yes, mouse!"  "What do you mean mouse?"  "There's a mouse in the bedroom!!"  Both G and B heard the exchange and left their beds to investigate.

I thought it might be a vole because of its dark color, but the tail was too long.

The boys and two of our cats were recruited to help catch the mouse.  At one point we lost track of it, after moving the dresser away from the wall and not seeing anything.  I thought briefly about going through the clothes in the laundry basket (right next to the dresser) to look for it.  But Daniel was the hero of the night and found it again behind my work bag.  Long story short, the mouse was eventually cornered and caught.  And released outside into the brushpile in the backyard.

My husband sings the 'Born Free' song when he releases mice.

Since then the cats have caught (and killed) three more mice, and we've put out a dozen traps.  It's this time of year when mice are looking for a warm spot to ride out the winter.  I'm tempted to put tiny 'No Vacancy' signs outside around our foundation.  Or perhaps use the hobo mouse code?