Shylock is trying to even up the score in catching things. To the best of my knowledge its 3 to Shylock and 7 to Falstaff. Their favourite at the moment is frogs, since we've been having a lot of rain and the frogs have been taking evening constitutionals in the garden. It seems every night, I'm having to go outside and remove cat from the area to give the frog chance to escape.

Last night, I heard one of the cats come in. I was pretty sure it was Shylock - the bells on their collars sound different, because they move slightly differently. He didn't appear in the living room, so I went into the dining room to investigate. He'd bought a frog in, and was patting it. They were both about 18 inches from the piano. I grabbed Shylock, so that he wouldn't hurt the frog anymore. Yelling to Paul "There's an enormous frog in the dining room", I lock Shylock in another room, while we rescue the frog. But when Paul and I get back to the dining room, the frog has vanished. He'd last been seen crawling towards the piano. How on earth do you get a frog out from under a piano, without ending up with squished frog?

Our first course of action was to establish where the frog was, so for 10 minutes we were crawling round on the floor, peering under the piano with a torch - but there was no frog. As far as I know frogs can't just vanish into thin air, so where had he gone? I find it quite scary crawling around on the floor, with a loose frog in the house - you never know when it might jump at you unexpectedly. Then we had an inspirational light-bulb moment, quite a horrifying one really, since we reckoned the frog had got into the piano. Paul started taking the piano apart, but still no frog. I'm really starting to worry by this point, since I don't want to leave a frog partying in the dining room.

Luckily we then heard a noise. It was coming from the far end of the piano, where there was a cardboard box. Just as we were about to move the box, the frog advances round the corner of the box, looking quite perky. Paul was dispatched to the garden to get a plant pot to put over the frog and we carefully slide a piece of cardboard underneath. Paul then took the frog outside and released it into the pond.

The piano was reassembled and Shylock released. He promptly starts sniffing round the dining room, with a "I'm sure I left a frog here" expression.

I'm thinking of putting a sign on the back door, at cat head height, something like one of those road signs that have a diagonal red line through them, with a picture of a frog on it. Definitely no frogs allowed in the house.

Copyright © Rachel Craddock
August 13, 2004