We’ve been having some mouse adventures here at the homestead lately, the most recent of which concluded this afternoon with Johnny emerging from the bathroom, squeaking mouse clamped proudly in mouth, and me carrying the cat carrying the mouse out into the backyard. There I prevailed upon him to drop the rodent, which looked about stunned and did not move away with any great alacrity. Whether it will survive this incident I do not know.
I’ve always wondered about the expression “game of cat and mouse,” because in my experience it’s not much of a game for the mouse. The interaction tends to go like this:
1. Cat pounces on mouse, holds it down with paw and/or picks it up in mouth
2. Cat releases mouse, which scurries away to the best of its ability
3. Repeat step 1
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until mouse expires from heart attack and/or sheer exhaustion
5. Cat gets bored and walks away
Most domestic cats can’t be bothered to consume anything they catch, unlike the semi-feral cats at the house where I lived in the Berkeley hills during college. I have a vivid memory of them catching a fairly large rat which 20 minutes later was nothing but a tail.
If you’re thinking there must be a point to all this, you are sadly mistaken. This is just me turning a black number red. It’s Monday, after all.
Congratulations! You have a cat who knows what his purpose is in life & carries it out. In bringing the mouse to you, he is giving you what he considers a precious gift. He was no doubt bewildered that you took the mouse outside and released it (especially since he’ll most likely have to catch it again when it returns inside your residence eventually).
Now our cat Izzy, although born in a barn in Issaquah, WA, has lived all but the first few weeks of his life inside our home. I don’t think he has ever seen a real mouse, except maybe looking at it through our screened back porch. If he ever did encounter a real mouse face to face, I expect he would either bat it around with a declawed front paw, or run away and hide.
Tom and Jerry was always a favorite, but agonizingly frustrating. I always wanted Tom to get that little fucker. Instead, the episode would usually end with Tom having x’s for eyes.
I’m with you, D. I always wanted to see Jerry get eaten. He was an arrogant little prick, and Tom was just trying to follow his biological imperative.