I knew that my little Roadcat was an excellent huntress and a Tough Girl Kitty, but I had no idea she was such an excellent hunt organizer!

This morning I was standing at the kitchen sink washing all the kitty food bowls. I usually have a whole flock of cats at my feet when I do this so I was surprised to see everybody under the kitchen table instead. As I looked over to see what they were up to I saw a flash of dark fur way too close to the floor - a rodent was in the house.

I grabbed a box to catch the rodent in and started moving obstacles (chairs and the like) away from the table to I could to where the action was. As I was crawling around I to watch the action - Harri took the corner of the table next to the microwave cart and held her position. She was keeping an eye on the rodent (either a huge mouse or a small rat), and I swear she was signaling Ranger, Tabitha, and Samuel where to move next! The mouse would move towards the living room and Harri would wave a paw at Sammy, who would move in on that side. It would move towards the kitchen, Harri would meow and wave a Paw at Tabitha, and Tabitha would cut off that avenue.

This was fascinating to watch, but I still spoiled the fun by dropping a box over the mouse, sliding a cardboard underneath, and taking the critter outside and turning it loose. The kitties, however, weren't deterred. They kept sniffing a prowling around where they first caught sight of it, in hopes of turning up some more live prey.

We don't normally see many rodents in our area, but a big brush fire started just a few miles from our house yesterday afternoon. By last night it had grown to 750 acres. It's moving away from our house so we're most likely not in danger, but it's still close enough that we could be seeing some animals displaced by the fire and the firefighting operations.

Copyright © Dan Mahoney
January 25, 2006