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I was up at 4am which is not unusual. The cat gets antsy at that time of day and wants to go out. I get up, make my coffee and begin checking my e-mail while the cats go in and out.

This morning it is pouring rain but Richie HAS to go out. First I open the slider and he just looks, so I shut the door. A few minutes later he is back at the door and when I open it this time he dashes out into the rain. I know he won’t stay out long, but those hunting instincts are very strong in him and I swear he just has to kill something! This time of year the chipmunks are hibernating and he really misses torturing them, so he has turned his attention to the birds, but they aren’t out this early.  In fact, the cats catch a lot less this time of year.

Richie has a bad habit of throwing himself against the screen door, paws up, to get my attention when he wants to come in and if I don’t see him right away he’ll climb up the screen. He refuses to be ignored.

So, sure enough, after a few minutes he is at the door and I know he is soaking wet, so I let him in and go to get a towel to dry him. That is when I notice that something is not right. I find to my horror, that he is holding a little gray mouse in his mouth. I immediately pick him up and throw him out the door before he can drop the thing, which is probably only half dead, and as soon as his feet hit the outside deck he turns in a flash and runs back inside. This time he won’t let me near him and heads for my bedroom. Sure enough he drops the mouse – I was right, it can still run – and as I close my bedroom door on him, I see the mouse scoot under my bed.

So I waited until he began meowing at the closed door and then went to see what was up. I opened the door and the cat came out. No sign of the mouse. Now I must go search for the half dead thing that is probably hiding some place in my room.

This has not been a good day so far and it’s only 5:15am.

Update:
At 6:00am my son got up and helped me flush the mouse out of the bedroom. That is not what I intended, but while the cat was looking the other way, my son started yelling, “there he goes!” and I saw the little thing waddling off toward the kitchen, so I grabbed the cat and threw him out the door towards it and a chase ensued which ended up with the mouse and cat in the basement. Okay, that’s good.

At 7:05am Richie comes walking through the kitchen with – yup, you guessed it – the mouse in his mouth, and he is heading to my bedroom again! (I leave the basement door open because the litter box is down there.) So, he dropped the mouse and began playing with it. He chased it around under my bed and out into the hall and finally picked it up in his mouth, so I picked him up and ran to the door and threw him out – way out – so he couldn’t quickly pop back in.
At last I can relax and not think about that mouse any more.

Read about my Adopted Shelter Cats here.