Chasing Mice

I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time this wekend chasing mice around the house and then evicting them. Two mice on Saturday and three on Sunday (mind you - that might have been the same mouse three times).

I am "owned" by two cat who both come from the same litter. That is the only similarity between them. The female Pickle is a tortoishell with a small round head and a large body who sleeps most of the time. The best way to describe her is portly. Her brother, however, is black and sleek, with a wedge shaped head. The head, and the way he "chats" to me makes me think there must be siamese or burmese blood in him (both he and his sister are moggies who came from the Cats Protection as kittens). Originally we called him Pepper but we soon realised that a better name for him was "Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter". Well, hunting might be in his blood but what he lacks is brains. Once he has caught the creatures (birds, rodents like mice, etc) he does not kill them like most cats. Instead he tries to make them his toys. He carries them, in a soft mouth so that they are not injured at all, into the house, lets them go and plays with them. He does not physically hurt them at all, he just likes a supply of "toys" in the house. Of course, it does not work like that. Birds are terrified and every so often I end up chasing one of them around the house - last week it was a blackbird which seemed unable to understand that the windows are covered with glass and do not give it any egress from the house. It took me ages to catch it and finally expel it from the house. He frequently brings in mice as well. I will never forget being woken up at 2.30 in the morning when a mouse ambled over my prone body while I was asleep in bed.

Anyway, to get to the weekend. Saturday evening, about 10.30 there was a kerfuffle in the dining room. When I went to investigate I found Nimrod playing with a mouse (he was using soft paws and no teeth but it didn't stop the poor thing being terrified), Pickle was looking on with surprising animation. I chased around after the poor creature (who was even more afraid of me) under the sideboard and under the computer table and eventually caught him. I let him go outside and settled back to continue reading. Hawever, before I had finished another paragraph there was more fuss behind me in the dining room. Another mouse. I again chased this one around and eventually caught it under the dining table. It was clearly a different mouse from the first as it was smaller, had a longer tail and had some white on him (from fear?). This one I again let go outside.

Sunday evening, again after it was dark at about 11.00 and another kerfuffle, this time in the hall. A large and plump mouse whch I caught with some difficulty and carried out of the front door and took to one side of the house to let go. However, I failed to make sure that the front door was closed behind me and Nim followed. It was too dark to see what happened but I suspect that the cat caught the mouse again because within a minute of my going back into the house Nimrod walked in through the catflap with a mouse in his mouth. I suspect the same one. So again I chased cat and mouse around the house, captured the terrified rodent and took it somewhere else in the garden to release it. I had left Nimrod indoors while this was going on but as soon as I was back indoors and he could get into the kitchen he was out the catflap in a shot. Three minutes later guess what? In he came again with a mouse which looked suspiciously like the one had already released twice. So, for the third time that evening I chased it, caught it and let it go in another part of the garden. This time Nimrod never found it again, thank goodness.

Where was the Husband while all this was going on? Hiding. He doesn't like mice and lets me deal with them. But he is a dab hand at disposing of spiders.

The one thing that worries me about Nimrod's propensity for bringing mice and other creatures into the house is that on two separate occasions I have woken up to find the bodies of large rats on the carpet in the hall. Now, a live one of those I just would not like in the house. What on earth I do about that I just do not know.