Well I'd posted about my hands off cat Sasha about a month or 2 ago, and how she's lazy and withdrawn. Well last night she proved her worth to me.

I had a mouse in my house, and I'd put down traps etc, but didn't like it as I have a 9-month-old baby - Joey, and mice carry disease.

Well! Last night I woke up at 2am to the sound of shuffling coming from my bedroom floor and heard something moving around VERY close to me. First I thought, is that Joey? But no way. He was sound asleep and so was my fiancé - Mark. So I woke Mark up and we turned on the light, put Joey into another room, and heard the shuffling again and again coming from under a chest of drawers. FREAKY!

So Mark pulled out the chest of drawers and a little brown mouse came running out and went running underneath our divan bed (drawers underneath) And we thought 'we're never going to get it now'. So I went outdoors and called in our 2 pet cats - Sasha and Darcey - and Darcey immediately smelt the mouse, and went straight into hunting mode.

Mark began pulling out the drawers under the bed (whilst I jumped up and down on the bed freaking out!!) and Darcey kept hunting. Sasha just lay on the floor cleaning herself, and I thought 'aw Sasha, can you not just be a proper cat for once?'

And after about 30 mins Sasha went under the bed too. Then suddenly the mouse made a run for it, and both cats went into a frenzy, and before I knew it, Sasha walked out from under the bed triumphant carrying the mouse and wanting to be let out.

Of course being the animal lover I am, I immediately felt sorry for the mouse, and I managed to get it free from Sasha and trap it under a bowl. It was unharmed. I got a pic and have posted it below! And then Mark got a bit of cardboard under the bowl and he took the mouse to a field about a 20 min walk from the house and set it free.

Mark's convinced there aren't any more mice, but I'm keeping the traps down, and sure if there are any more, I've always got Sasha! She's a real cat after all!

Loved the story. You are right about being a hunter. I found also that my cats never let a spider, etc crawl around or anything fly around the house.

So if your baby is crawling around the floor....the cats are keeping lots of possible live things away.

Our Molly was a hunter-killer.
Click to view attachment

One day I heard a terrible commotion down the hallway. Molly was trying to tear the cover off the baseboard heater. I told her to stop, and went back into my office.

A few minutes later, Molly went tearing down the hallway, chasing a wounded mouse.

She chased the mouse right up to the face of Murphy
Click to view attachment

The mouse did something I never saw an animal do before. He seemed to think, "That's it! I'm screwed!!!" and simply SAT DOWN.
Maybe he fainted.
His hindquarters were a mess, so I chloroformed him and "sacrificed him to Neptune".... ****Flush****


The mice are a consequence of keeping 50# bags of sunflower seeds around for the bird feeders. The bluebirds have come back to the area, among many other species. The only downside is the Redtailed hawks and Peregrine falcons once in a while use the bird traffic at the feeders as a kind of McDonalds.

One weird thing about living in the woods is that sometiimes strange animals get in. Our cats have to be exclusively indoors because of coyotes.

One day, pandemonium erupted and the cats were going berserk, tearing the bedroom apart. Blankets were torn off the bed, lamps were overturned, drawers were pulled open, and all surfaces were cleared off. The cats were growling and whining.

Then, atop the mirror on the high dresser was perched a flying squirrel! He must have come in an open window. They have huge eyes, and his seemed extra big...I am sure he regretted coming in. We opened the window and slider, finally got the cats out of the room, and let him leave. He never came back.

THEN there was the time a bat got in. The cats had no hope of catching him, but were running around and jumping onto everything.
The bat got an unexpected ride on the ceiling fan, which happily was set to its lowest speed, and then left voluntarily.