The joy of cats

You may recall my post about our evening catching a mouse and releasing it into the wild. Sadly this is a regular part of our lives given that we live with two cats. Most of our rescues have been successful, I'll gloss over the time I rescued one small rodent from the clutches of our cats only to inadvertently, and rather carelessly in my opinion, squash the poor thing in the process of carrying it out into the wild!

Pip, our larger cat and brother to Jade, my study partner, is going through a hunting phase at the moment. To be precise he's going through a catching phase. He's always gone hunting, I just think he's surprising himself and actually catching the things as well. He certainly looks surprised when he arrives back with his prize.

Normally these gifts are left near the back door for us to find at our earliest convenience, but if the door is open he makes sure we get the opportunity to play by bringing the traumatised creature into the hall. Of course the hall presents the said animal with the largest number of directions from which to choose as potential escape routes, clearly designed to increase our enjoyment of the chase. Or not. 

This evenings offering was somewhat worse for wear and was easily caught using my upturned biscuit tin technique, honed during one particularly long night spent squeezed between a wardrobe and a wall.

This all rather nullifies my argument for not having a dog. I've always argued that dogs require more care and you have clean up after them. Small boys may be fascinated by the idea of carrying a plastic bag of doggy waste around with them, but I am profoundly not interested in so doing.

On the other hand, chasing mice and occasionally having to deal with the still warm stomach contents of a cat who ate to fast is similarly distasteful.

In the end I guess it true, you're either a cat person or a dog person, and I'm a cat person. So I'll just have to put up with the occasional mouse hunt and clear up for the sake of the pleasure of the company of two very fine felines.