What does/would your cat do with a REAL mouse?

[tuxluvr]

Ritz is an indoor only cat...but living in the country we do get the occasional field mouse that wanders into the house. The fortunately few and far between occurrences do bring out the "beast" in Ritz. She becomes a totally focused 'mouse machine', however I have to say she wouldn't garner a spot on Wild Kingdom.

You see, Miz Ritz has never had to eat anything but kibble, which is on regular supply at the kitty lunch counter. So, said mouse is really little more than, well, a really neat self-motorized play toy.

I was in the downstairs bathroom and heard this massive scrambling and bumping noise outside the door(what happens when a 15 pound cat runs headlong through the legs of various pieces of kitchen furniture, bumping into most of the legs and often knocking them seveal inches off center), followed by incessant squeaking......I opened the door just in time to see something fly by the opening and WHAM bounced off the closed door to the dining room.....I thought it was one of Ritzy's fake mousies, but when it landed, still on it's back, this poor little brown-backed white-tummied mouse with the look of sheer terror on its face, panting like an out of shape runner.

Ritz would pick it up in her mouth, but the minute the little mouse "wiggled" she would spit it out(ptoooey, my fake mice don't wiggle mom, what's the deal?!!), pick it up in her two front paws and "fling' it in the air....

We generally take the mousie's side at some point, find a way to capture Mr Mousie and release back outside where it is free from the torture of the "Tuxedoed Tormenter"....

This is followed by a 24 hour vigil - Ritz going to the places she originally saw the mouse and engage in a "stare down" that rivals the best obsessive-compulsive on the planet!

[bisi.cat]

"Tuxedoed Tormenter"

Oh lala, Ms Ritzy...you are really scaring to the mousies!!!

Your story is so familiar to me...that's exactly how Nellie reacts when she catches a mouse outside...she has never learned to kill them...they are just fun...(oh how cruel! )...

But sometimes the mousies manage to escape and then Nellie would wait patiently in front of the spot...seconds pass...then minutes...but after a while she's fed up with waiting and she goes away for some more mice hunting...
In the past it happened more and more that we suddenly spot ALIVE mice under our furniture...so I guess word spread among the mice to keep still until Nellie is giving up waiting...
I wish she would be more thoroughly regarding her "toys"...

[catlover4ever]

Tucker, Mystic and Abner all are allowed outside when my husband comes home from work (they were all outside drop off cats when I took them in) and they also love to play with their mice. If I happen to be outside with them I will make every attempt to do a mouse rescue, but sometimes that does not always happen as they love to run under the deck with the poor critter. They all turn into "mad cats". They throw them up in the air, bat them around the ground, run with them in their mouths, etc.

[catmandu]

Michael , Princess and moose the Magnificent are once fearl Cats , so they would efficientally kill and eat the mouse. The other Cats couldnt catch a cold , thus the mice could have a field day. Although Rocca is an amazing fly catcher , and she can catch a fly in middair!

[jazzcat]

When we first moved in this house 10 years ago we would let Ripley play in the garage to expell some of his excess energy (boy was he energetic). Once while we were watching a movie with the lights out he came in and sat right in front of the tv and had something in his mouth. We finally realized it was wiggling and he dropped it on the floor. It was a baby mouse and he was playing with it. Anyway, he had no intention of killing it, just playing so we had trap it and release it outside.

One other time he brought a large live mouse in and it got under our kitchen cabinets. I think Ripley had more fun watching us scream and run trying to catch it than he ever had with the mouse.

[Barbara]

Filou and Tigris are born indoors -so they had little chance to learn how to kill mice.

But Filou has had the experience. In the house where he was born, he caught a mouse in the attic and -being proud as anything- came down the stairs with the mouse in his mouth (the mouse must have been very big game for him then).

In our sillier moments we have thought of giving a live mousie to the boys but as we think mousies are far too cute and we would have the same ethic level as Roman emperors then we will never do that

[zippy-kat]

I don't know what K'Cee would do!

Hopefully she wouldn't treat it as she does her fake mousies, ie dip them in water and put them in bed with me sometime during the night!!

[Tubby & Peanut's Mom]

Tubby used to be the Great Black Hunter (as compared to the Great White Hunter ). My mom lives in the country, with an old barn at the bottom of the hill, a woods behind and to the side of the house, and fields all around that. So it seems every fall and winter we'd get mice in the house. Just cute little field mice so they weren't scary.

bisi.cat writes "But sometimes the mousies manage to escape and then Nellie would wait patiently in front of the spot...seconds pass...then minutes...but after a while she's fed up with waiting and she goes away for some more mice hunting..."

Well, Tubby wouldn't get fed up. He'd sit and wait for days to see if the mouse would come out again. Sometimes the only way we knew there was a mouse around was if we noticed Tubby staring at the heater or cupboard for a few days in a row.

Here he is keeping an eye on the mousie.

They often got away because he would get bored with them and wouldn't attack until they moved. Some of them were smart and would just lay there until they got their breath back, then bolt real quick and they were gone.

And here he is staring in the cupboard. My mom would leave the door open for him. Also, notice the mouse trap. Thankfully Tubby never bothered that.


I always felt sorry for the mouse and tried to keep Tubby away, but my mom didn't like that because she thought Tubby would hurt the mouse so bad that it would hide in the heater pipes and die, then smell the whole house up. But that never happened. I know Tubby misses his mouse hunting days.

[bisi.cat]

Originally posted by Tubby & Peanut's Mom
I know Tubby misses his mouse hunting days.

Hey, that could be easily changed...next time I'll find an abandoned mousie from Nellie I'll mail it to Tubby...

So watch out Great Black Hunter for a tiny parcel from Germany...Teehee

[momoffuzzyfaces]

Seams every fall, at least one mouse is silly enough to try and move in. The boys play with it until it dies then leave it for me to step on bare footed in the middle of the night. That's happened twice. Now I leave a light on. If the mouse is lucky, I can get it away from them and put it outside before it goes to the RB. Of course there are about 5 outdoor cats it needs to run from then. Mice beware!!! This is not a mouse friendly zone!

I am pretty sure that both Maya & Inka would try to catch that mouse, punch it half-death, then play with it untill the poor thing leaves this world ! They never saw a real one, but I can see them everyday now, during their "outside-hour"; they chase really EVERYTHING that moves. Maya loves butterflies and musquitos : once she had a brown-yellow coloured tongue after eating one...... Inka goes bananas everytime she spots a fly!! You should see her hop and jump around on our lawn!! Really funny


here Inka is hiding and waiting for a fly that is passing by....

[Desert Arabian]

I'm not sure what Dudley & Sammy would do with a real mouse. But, I do know what they do with a real rat. They look at it, sometimes quickly sniff it, and run down the hall as if a huge beast was chasing them.

They are terrified of the rats when they are running around loose. When they are in the cage, they love to play with them and bat at them through the screen. That is because they know the rats can't do anything to them. When the rats are outside of the cage that is a whole nother story and they would never think about touching one of them.

hehehehehehehehe...chickens.

I can see them killing a mouse, because they are much smaller than the rats and don't look like such a threat to them. Hopefully I will never know....

[Prairie Purrs]

Haven't had any mice venture indoors in a long time (it would take an exceptionally brave or stupid mouse to do so), but there were a couple of occasions back in the days when there were only two cats in residence when I came home to find Kacey trying to stick his head into one of my boots. Each time, I found a terrified mouse cowering in the toe of the boot. Took boot outside, set mouse free.

What I always have wondered is whether Kacey picked up the mouse and dropped it in the boot, or whether he somehow managed to herd the mouse in there. As to why, well . . .

[prechrswife]

Our two female cats, Saphirah and Chloe, do like most of the other cats mentioned here. They very intently track and chase the mouse, but never catch it. The funny one is our male cat, Samson. He completely ignores the mice and looks at the girls like "What's the big deal?"

(A little back story on Samson: Before we moved to our current residence, we lived in the country. Samson moved in under our house. He was very scrawny, and his long hair was matted, but he was tame. Seeing as we lived between 2 large pastures, there was an abundant mouse population, however, Samson was evidently not much of a mouser. Our best guess is that someone dumped him in the country thinking he could live off of the mice he could catch. We started out feeding him, and eventually he found his way inside the house.)

[wolfsoul]

Sara likes to catch and kill mice, but she never eats them.

She will sit beside the hole under the shed just waiting. And staring.

The dog caught on eventually and has chased the cat from her lookout and now she sits there staring and waiting. She'd never kill a mouse like Sara, so I guess it's a better arrangement.