Friday, January 18, 2013

Mighty Hunter

I suppose I should give a cat update. We have a cat.

So far we haven't been letting him outside. I should say, we don't let him outside unless we go outside with him. This means on cold January Willamette Valley days where the sun never shines and a grey pall of clouds threatenes to turn into freezing fog, we don't go out. There have been a few days recently where it was very sunny. and we let him out on those days. But on the cold, dark, grey days, he has to be content with staying inside and not catching Kitty Leukemia.

Of course, he does not appreciate this. Based on he occasions where Smokey has transformed into a Wild Galloping Kitty of the West, I think we're in trouble.

We're sure that once he does get his Lukemia shots, Smokey will become A Mighty Hunger bringing us many dead birds, snakes, and other prey. I say this because last night we had a mouse in the house. Actually two.

One of the mice went to work with Mark, who was feeling something moving around in his jacket before he took it off and a mouse jumped out. The other mouse stayed home and was scampering about (mice always look bigger when I'm reading and I see them out of the corner of my eye).

Smokey figured out the mouse was hiding out in one of our closets. So he waited. And waited. And waited. We tried to set him on the scent of the mouse on the two times that the mouse had gotten around him somehow. But he always went back the closet and waited some more.

About 10:30 there was a terrific crash, and Smokey wandered into the living room. With a mouse in his mouth. Which he released. Then caught. Then released. Then caught again. I thought maybe he would eat it if I could convince him to go into the garage. But he really wanted to play with the mouse, as evidenced by the way he released it again so he could bat it with his paws.

We closed the door so we could go to sleep (and also because we didn't want a real live dead mouse dropped into bed), but I'm pretty sure it was after 12:30 AM once he was done batting it around the house.




Smokey continues to groom us. I'd like to think that he's slowly pickingup on the fact that when he uses his teeth on our scalps that we dont relish the sesssion. We relish it less now that Smokey's new nick-name is "rodent-breath." Not that we relish being licked by a raspy cat tongue in the first place. I say I'd like to think that he's picking his up, but since he likes to bite my hand when I pet him, I remain unsure. I'm assured by the web liteature that these are love bites.

No comments: