After he had two days of “playtime” with my indoor cat, I was finally able to trap an exhausted mouse in a corner and scoop it up on a dustpan. From there, he had a short, but spectacular flight out the front door.
Surprisingly, he had enough life in him to scurry off. I know for a fact the cat picked him up several times, rolled him goodness knows how many, and just generally made his life hell for two days. I can’t believe he was even still alive. I guess my girl wanted a friend, not a snack.
I’m not encumbered by tender, squishy feelings for vermin, so I don’t much care what happens to him, as long as it doesn’t lead him right back into my house. (Now I get to roam around with steel wool and try to figure how the heck he got in.)
The purpose of the instinct cats have to ‘play’ with their prey is to befuddle and damage the prey animal sufficiently that they are too weak to bite. Like other predators, cats cannot afford to get injured by their food; they might starve while they are healing.
Domesticated cats’ instincts are not always fully intact . . .
Interesting! She was a stray, and I got her when she was about a year old. I tease her all the time that she doesn’t know how to cat, and I suspect she was on her own pretty early.
My cat was playing with a mouse a few months ago and I had to get up, put a glove on and pick it up and toss it out the back door. The mouse almost walked into my hand… glad to be “saved”.
If you come across the scene too late, it is too late, but you need to take the injured mouse/rat/bird to the vet, not toss it out the door to die a slow agonizing death.
That photo needs a warning - it’s downright dangerous for those of use who melt at the sight of a cute feline. I may be incapacitated for the rest of the day.
I rescued a mouse from my step daughter’s cat. Step Daughter made me promise that I would release the mouse, rather than kill him. I put him in a jar and carried him to the garden and released him.
As I went up the stairs, I saw him run under the house. I did not see him again. Perhaps he became more adept at stealth mode.
Oh come on. Mice in homes are vermin, there are whole industries built around killing them. Taking an injured mouse to a vet is ludicrous. Only exception would be if it were a pet, which this clearly wasn’t.
The same thing has been said about wolves, coyotes, foxes, prairie dogs, and plenty of other animals throughout history. Just because one group considers a certain animal to be a pest doesn’t make it universally true.
Sure, but if a certain animal is widely considered to be a pest and there are no legal prohibitions against killing them when they take up residence in your house, it seems a bit detached from reality to instruct people that they “need” to take the critter to the vet if it’s injured.
I can see making a case for euthanizing an injured mouse or rat rather than leaving it outdoors to suffer unnecessarily, but demanding that it be given a trip to the vet and professional treatment seems like rather a hard sell.
(And not just to the homeowner, but to the vet as well. AFAICT, many vets who don’t have a Laboratory Animal Veterinarian specialization or training are reluctant to treat even pet mice or rats, which are thoroughly domesticated. Stitching or bonesetting on a wild rodent carrying Og knows what kind of hantaviruses? I don’t think I know any vets who’d be up for that.)
My reading of DPRK’s post was that the animal should be taken to the vet to put it down, not be left to suffer a slow death. Not take to the vet for stitching up.
If you come across the scene too late, it is too late, but you need to take the injured mouse/rat/bird to the vet, not toss it out the door to die a slow agonizing death.
All the billions of mice that are not caught by cats die whatever pleasant or unpleasant sort of death they are going to die, anyway. There’s nothing much you can do about it.
A very compassionate, nature-friendly friend of ours had a (wild) mouse in her home. So she got a humane trap, and caught the beast alive.
She took it out into a little woodland nearby. When she released it a cat leapt out of a bush nearby, grabbed it and ran off. Nature at work!
If I hadn’t found the mouse it would have died in my house. At least this way, it got to enjoy some fresh air and nature. And who knows? Maybe he’ll live a long and fruitful mouse life out there, and be a legend among mice for his harrowing tale.
Field mice get into our home every October (yikes!). My gf insists I live trap them, so I do. Setting my traps I’ll catch two or three a week.
She takes them down to the barn and releases them into a little mouse-city she has set up. They have food, water, and shelter to enjoy until they get eaten.
We let ours go about a quarter mile away from the house, in the grass near a lake, with plenty of stuff between there and my house. When we go up to the house, we can usually catch 3-6 mice the first couple of days. I’m sure some get taken by snakes, or birds, or feral cats, but they have a fighting chance.
(Now I get to roam around with steel wool and try to figure how the heck he got in.)
