Summer is well and truly fast escaping me but what an awesome summer break it’s been. I feel as though I’ve been able to achieve those jobs that I would otherwise put off when working. And yet myself and the kids have been blessed with being able to take a mini break where we’ve visited a dear BFF of mine.
So the purpose of this blog entry….
A certain kitty has gone a little AWOL since an incident which I will call, “Mouse-Gate”. Mr Knuckles (the subject of my previous profile picture when I started this Blog) has a tendency to act as though he is guarding me whenever I am in the garden. It is truly a sight to see when I’d be weeding or cutting the lawn and he would make a point of standing a few feet away from me scanning the perimeter of the garden just in case a predator should suddenly appear and try to eat me.
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| Knuckles the Brave |
In reality, however, of all my pets, this has to be the most fearful and yet the biggest of all the cats, but he does put on a good show.
So about two nights ago I went out to feed the goldfish, when I heard a squeak about two feet away from me and I also noticed a tiny movement on the lawn. Naturally I let out a scream (as you do) especially when I discovered that it was an injured adult mouse.
It became very clear that mum cat (Veloceraptor CoCo) had caught another gift for me but had mysteriously left it alive this time.
Needless to say it left me with an awful dilemma – I knew that the mouse was very badly injured but I was too scared to go near it and put it out of its misery. So I called Coco over and ever so politely asked her to do the right thing and quickly finish off the poor mouse. Coco stared at me, glanced over to the rodent, stared back at me with an expression as if to say “it’s all yours!” and then walked away from the mouse.
Not two seconds later here comes my kitty knight in shining armour – Knuckles. He trots over to me making as much noise as possible as if to announce that he was here for me. So again I – ever so politely – asked him to sort out the mouse. He eagerly walked over to the mouse, sniffed it which resulted in the mouse aggressively squeaking at him. He then stared at me, gave one resolute ‘meow’ and he too walked away from the rodent before plopping himself down about a foot away from me and the mouse!
I was gutted. What followed was the usual “are you a Tom or a mouse?”, “what am I paying you for in prime turkey meat?” etc before I realised that I would either have to assess how injured the mouse was and/or whether plan C could be that it might just up and walk away.
But as the sun was setting, I realised very quickly that the mouse was going nowhere and in its current state may fall prey to suffering unnecessarily before being eaten alive by foxes or worse. I was going to have to euthanise it.
This decision was one that was both hard and very hard for me – I’ve not had to put down an animal in my adult life (I recall being quite brutal as a Tomboy at 6 or 7 years old but now?!), but the bigger one was that I did not want to go within one foot of the mouse for fear that somehow it might develop herculean strength and leap for my vulnerable neck in some Kamikaze death attack (I’d given up the idea that somehow Knuckles would intercept the attack – that boat had long sailed).
Being the coward that I was, I reached for a 2 metre (6ft) long metal pole which could do the job (it was quite heavy) as expediently as I possibly could so as not to hurt the mouse longer than necessary.
If I was my neighbour, I am positive that they would have gotten their viral You Tube video from what occurred next. As I was gently nudging the mouse to an area of concrete to where it would meet a quick end, I somehow managed to position it near Knuckles’ tail. With its last burst of energy the mouse promptly latched onto Knuckles whilst giving this Tarzan like squeal, Knuckles jumped up swinging his tail and the mouse ended up landing after swinging like Spiderman on my cat’s tail. It was at that moment I had to reluctantly euthanize the poor creature with one quick blow. But it really was one aggressive little fellow and had died with honour.
Knuckles might need therapy on the other hand. He followed me into the house which was where I took the above picture and after lots and lots of petting was confident to venture outside again. He looked ashamed and dejected (if even a cat could do that). But I reassured him that it was a one off and hopefully he won’t come across another mouse which was that aggressive.
Since that night, though he has been spending more time away from the garden itself and only comes in for food.
Hopefully over time he will once again get another chance of being my protector in the garden or at the very least does not develop a phobia of mice.
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