All creatures, great and small

I’m a big fan of God’s creatures. The only things that make me uncomfortable are large, jumping spiders or roach gangs (you know they never travel alone). That said, when I woke up in the middle of the night to let my dog outside, and happened to wander into the living room to find our three cats strategically hunkered down around the swivel chair, I became apprehensive. Tails were swishing in wide strokes (except for Ollie, the Manx cat sans tail) indicating the hunt was on.

With only my outdated eyeglasses and lack of courage to guide me, I returned to bed. One of three things would happen: 1) Whatever was under the chair would try and escape and the cats would subdue/eat it, 2) The visitor would remain under the chair or 3) I would wake refreshed, realizing as J.R. did on the television hit series “Dallas”, that it was all a bad dream. The alternative was waking my peacefully sleeping husband and that wasn’t nice.

In the morning with my contacts in and my husband awake, we went to the living room. The cats were still in position. We lifted the chair to find a small, cute gray mouse squinting into the light. The cats moved in and the mouse ran under the sofa. This lifting of furniture and mouse movement persisted for 20 minutes. There just weren’t enough people to lift all of the furniture at one time. Finally, the mouse made a break for the kitchen.

Thank goodness I am not a general in the military. My army of cats was receiving mixed orders. “Get ‘em,” I’d say. Then, when they’d get close to the mouse, I’d specify, “But, don’t hurt him.” Gracie, a gray and white rehabilitated feral kitty, had the best instincts. However, since Ollie was the eldest, Gracie deferred to him to make the first move until she could stand it no longer. Tike, our Maine Coon, secured the perimeter.

Gracie had the mouse by the tail at one point and he flung himself over on his back and played dead. I moved in to grab him so I could release him in the garage when he realized there was a break in the action. He flipped over and ran under the china cabinet. Gracie then squeezed her rotund self under the cabinet and all fell quiet. After a few minutes she came out sans mouse. Perhaps she had eaten it, tail and all. After a few seconds, the mouse ran out of the darkness, squeezing himself under the laundry room door, never to be heard from again. Further investigation uncovered a hole in the wall where the home security box had been mounted. Since pursuant attempts to live trap him in the laundry room came up empty, and there hasn’t been a recurrence, I hope he reached safety.

I was asked at work what I would have done, had we captured the mouse. After all, it was below freezing outside and to release him into the cold would have been a death sentence. My plan was to release him into the garage and perhaps provide him a small bed of straw into which he could snuggle for the winter. Food and water were his responsibility.