Last night, Shylock caught a mouse. He was outside in the dark, which he's not allowed to do, and refused to come in as he'd caught a mouse and was playing with it. I'd tired rattling the cat treat can, calling, whistling etc, but he was busy with his new friend. Eventually I told him he could bring the mouse with him, especially as it was getting really cold. This did not go down well with Paul, who did not want a live mouse in the house. But it seemed to do the trick and Shylock came in, carrying his new friend in his mouth. He ended up on a dining chair by the cat flap and growled every time anyone came near. It was his mouse and he wasn't going to give it up easily. Also Paul was worried that the mouse would escape and that we'd never catch it. He'd already picked up the humane frog catching device (large plastic container to put over frog and piece of cardboard to slide underneath), but didn't reckon much to catching a fast moving mouse this way. We had to come up with a plan and quickly, before the mouse escaped or Shylock ran off and hid the mouse somewhere inaccessible. Paul was quite worried about Shylock dropping the mouse, so he'd positioned the container under Shylock's mouth. I decided to scruff Shylock so that he couldn't run off, and then we'd have a few seconds to think up a plan. Amazingly, when I scruffed the cat, he dropped the mouse into the waiting container. Paul was really impressed that I'd managed to find the mouse release button.

The mouse was safely returned to outside and Shylock got lots of praise for being clever enough to catch a mouse.

Copyright © Rachel Craddock
November 23, 2005