Saturday - early afternoon.
Hubby and I were sitting on the sofa reading. I heard Turbo scratching in the other room. He only scratches if he's up to something, so hubby went to see what was going on. We open the cat flap in the mornings, so it was open, and Turbo was inside. Hubby figured he made the noise coming through the flap. I wasn't convinced, but couldn't prove otherwise.
Hubby sat back down, Turbo followed and laid on the other end of the sofa, opposite the two of us and Pantera (pictured above).
Not too long after that I caught something out of the corner of my eye, looked at hubby and very calmly said 'what was that'? He looked at me and said '
that was a mouse'.
It made a beeline for underneath the tv set (we've been here before). Neither cat made a move. Pantera hadn't even seen it, and apparently neither had Tbo, or else he was bored with the whole situation and didn't care.
Hubby moved the tv so we could try and chase the mouse out, maybe in the process nabbing it underneath a bowl for releasing back out into the wild (yes, we're
those people). There was no way (big screen tv, afraid of running the mouse over with the wheels) so......Hubby drove into town and bought a humane trap, filled it with peanut butter, and we left to run errands for the day (with both cats outside).
Come home, no mouse in trap. No mouse under tv (that we can see). Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the kitchen and jumped on the arm of the sofa (a major over reaction - but I was barefoot
). lol
Still can't find the mouse. Hubby got the flashlight and looked underneath the fridge and stove, nothing. It was late, we hadn't had dinner, and we still had a mouse loose in the house. I was not prepared to go to bed with it running rampant.
You all know I'm a saver. I go out of my way to save critters (sometimes to the point of the ridiculous), but we had tried every humane thing we knew to do, so it was time for cat action. Actually, since Tbo and Pan were both in the house at that point there would have been little we could have done to avoid it.
If you don't want to know the ending DO NOT SCROLL DOWN (no graphics - it was over quickly, but still, I'm giving warning).....
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Pan must have seen movement because I have never seen a cat move so fast! Ever! I had the grocery bags sitting on the floor so all I saw was a swift swoop on Pan's part. He had the mouse (behind the bags), and was headed for the back door before I knew what was happening. Hubby opened the door and it was over. Clean sweep.
We both felt a little bad, but we honestly had tried everything we knew to do. Sadly, sometimes you just have to rely on the cat. That's what they do. I could not go to bed knowing there was a mouse running around the house.
Over the years Turbo has brought in a shrew, another mouse, and a flicker (all unhurt and released live inside for our enjoyment), so we're assuming that the scratching sound was him trying to catch the mouse after he had brought it in. He has a very soft mouth and light touch for a cat. He has never intentionally killed anything. He just brings whatever he finds inside for show-and-tell.
After watching Pan, Hubby said we just discovered how he managed to survive as a feral and by himself for so long. Thankfully for him, those days are over, except perhaps when his people need assistance.
