Our cat has a mouse in its mouth!

[Pithlet]

What do we do???? It still alive he doesn't know how to kill it. Omg

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

1. Grab a paper towel, pull it out of his mouth

And throw it as far as you can into the trees behind your house.

[Pithlet]

4. Ewwwwwwwww

This is disgusting. My husband and I are paralized. I know that is what we should do, but. Ewwwwww

He's trotting back and forth with it. Obviously pleased.

[President Kerry]

2. shoot the mouse n/t

[BikeWriter]

13. ROFLMAO! n/t

[melnjones]

3. LOL...

It was the "Omg" at the end that got me rolling, hee hee hee. lololol...

[Pithlet]

5. Damn it! He's lost it.

He keeps catching it and releasing it. I am thoroughly skeeved.

[StopTheMorans]

6. playing "cat and mouse", one might say

:silly:

[lenidog]

11. Its kinda a natural instinct for them to do that

no matter what PETA says.

[ronnykmarshall]

26. Get out!

PETA has a stick up it's ass about THAT?

[lenidog]

32. OOH YES

I had a gilrfriend who was a BIG PETA supporter. She tried to get me into it. Now don't get me wrong. I love animals my pets are not my property they are my family. When I lose them its almost like losing a kid. But I digress, so she would take me to listen to PETA speakers and this one woman was going on how domesticate cats never knew how to hunt and how it was humans who forced them into it. Its up to them to break them of it. Also that all good cat owners should get their pets to eat vegetarian pet food.

[yardwork]

41. ok, that's just plain wacked

Domestic cats are descended from wild cats and they all eat meat. Cats are hunters. Lions and tigers and cheetahs are hunters, and so is Fluffy.

I would like PETA to show me one single human who has ever been able to teach a cat to do anything, much less something as complicated as hunt.

I don't know how to hunt mice - how could I teach a cat?

[lenidog]

46. After that the whole idea of joining PETA

really went down hill. Some may consider me strange or if they are kind, eccentric but I am not crazy enough to believe that line of BS.


>>>I would like PETA to show me one single human who has ever been able to teach a cat to do anything, much less something as complicated as hunt.<<<

She obviously never owned a cat. If she did she would know that its impossible to teach a cat anything or for that matter make a cat do aything it doesn't want to.


>>>I don't know how to hunt mice - how could I teach a cat?<<<

AAW! Come on are you sure there isn't the blood of some great mousers running through your veins? ;-)

[ronnykmarshall]

63. Jesus H

Ya know, PETA really has done more harm than good.

[sparky_in_ma]

15. Good advice on the paper towel

That's a great way to do it, or playtex gloves. He needs a lot of praising and maybe a kitty treat after. Your little boy is growing up.:)

[ronnykmarshall]

23. Right on.

As gross as it might seem, this is a cat's way of protecting.

[Pithlet]

59. I know.

I'm actually very proud of my cat. I really didn't think he'd do that. But, still. Nature is grim. :scared:

[newsguyatl]

7. truly grossest post ever

sorry for your troubles.

yuck.

[alphafemale]

8. He'll figure it out. Trust me on this one.

Nature is playing its course.

Mice may be cute. The germs and vermin they spred t'aint.

They breed quick and often with large litters. They're prey.

[CatBoreal]

9. Praise him....

...tell him he's a good kitty, that he's a mighty hunter. Tell him your proud of him. If you don't, you'll hurt his feelings.

Then take the mouse out of it's mouth and if it isn't hurt let it go in somewhere away from your house. If not, put it out of it's misery in the most humane way you can.

[smbolisnch]

10. Try to get the mouse and take it outside and let it go.

If you can help it, get it away from the cat and give hom a squeaky fake mouse.......

[melnjones]

19. Despite my laughing earlier,

I agree 100%.

[yardwork]

12. Put the cat and the mouse outside

That way the cat will figure out what to do and you won't have to watch it.

I think that cats know exactly how to kill their prey. They just have too much fun playing to let it end so soon. Nature is cruel.

I agree with poster above who notes that wild mice are not cool in your house. I encourage cats to mouse.

[MidwestMomma]

14. He knows how to kill it....

But killing it is only half the fun to a cat. :)

[Biased Liberal Media]

16. It's a present

a sign showing he is thankful. My dad's cat Kitty did this with possums a few times.

[steely]

17. I agree - I knew of cats who would bring birds home

for dinner many moons ago - and the folklore was that they were bringing home the bacon so to speak, to share with you.

[lenidog]

20. I have to agree with you both

When I was a little kid I had a cat named Shadow and she would always leave me presents like birds, mice and even a snake once. Though her best present was the morning when I woke up and and almost freaked because I felt something small and furry crawl across my face. I slowly opened my eyes and gingerly picked it up and found a baby kitten in my hads. Shadow had brought her new kittens to show me.

[yardwork]

24. Aaaaawwww! That is a wonderful story!

[steely]

37. That's too cute.

:-)

[annabanana]

30. Your Dad's cat Kitty must have been

one BIG damn cat!!

[Biased Liberal Media]

36. He was a fat boy

but not huge. IIRC, the possum wasn't that big either...

[DELUSIONAL]

18. He's probably purring --

he'll be disappointed when his toy stops moving.

Good kitty!

Mice in the house are now put on notice -- mighty hunter in residence.

[alphafemale]

27. ...and having genetic memory of Egyptians worshipping him as a god. nt

[lenidog]

35. I never let my cat Jena watch the Ghost and the Darkness

might give her bad ideas. ;)

[dweller]

21. BBQ ??

doesn't sound like a good nite for Sushi.


dp

[tk2kewl]

22. Once I was out in the yard at night and came across my three cats

sitting together in a triangle and there was a maimed mouse limping around in the middle. I watched them kick the mouse around for a while and then left them to their business.

[yardwork]

28. At least they were sharing nicely

[pbartch]

25. my cat..........has BARBIE on her back!!!

I will admit......Sophie posed for this picture. Your kitty is ad-libbing.

[yardwork]

29. That photo was taken moments before a scene of carnage

....I can't look. I don't want to imagine what happened the second after the camera shutter snapped.

[pbartch]

34. Sophie has bitten that Barbie up quite a bit.

[yardwork]

43. It's the shimmery panty hose - Sophie, a feminist, is offended

[pbartch]

64. Sophie is a "Democat"

YUCK, YUCK........I COULD NOT RESIST!!!

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

67. That's part of my e-mail address - I've been "democat" for years!

[Merlot]

33. Your cat looks properly disgusted!

"What will these humans do next?"

[Pithlet]

40. LOL. Perfect.

I bet you never thought there'd be such a perfect moment to use that pic in the lounge, did you? :)

[Ladyhawk]

31. My grandpa used to say if you have cats, you have mice.

It is normal for a cat to "play" with its catches. Orcas do this, too. It's just one of those parts of nature that sometimes doesn't sit well with us humans. Sometimes the prey actually gets away and that's why people with cats usually have mouse problems...at least according to my grandpa.

We never had a cat and we never had mouse problems either. *shrug*

If you don't want to watch the cat play with the mouse until it dies, get heavy gloves to catch it and get it away from your house. Wild mice carry awful diseases. I'm sure there are some that we don't even know about yet...yuck! When I was in high school, I read about a plague-like disease that sprang up due to mice and quickly died down again. It was a real hot zone that killed some of the scientists working on isolating the cause. I vowed never to catch another wild mouse to feed to my snakes again...:scared:

[yardwork]

39. Would that be Hanta virus?

It killed some people in the American southwest. It's spread in rodent droppings that build up in houses. It's very rare, though.

[Ladyhawk]

49. I don't think so. The causative agent was never found and it was more...

...virulent than the hantavirus. It had a very high fatality rate, as I recall. I wish I could remember more, but I read the article many, many years ago.

[Pithlet]

38. He has it trapped under a chair

It's a large loveseat type chair, but for one person. So, this drama is still playing out.

Honestly, I didn't know my cat had it it him. He's a spoiled, pampered indoor cat. We suspected we had mice recently, and had already caught one in a live trap, and our cat seemed not a bit concerned. I was just so shocked to see one in his mouth! He's really trying to get at it now.

[yardwork]

42. He'll play with the poor thing for hours until it dies of heart failure

There probably isn't much you can do at this point. If the cat has clawed or bitten the mouse, it is curtains even if it doesn't die right away. Cats carry a lot of bacteria in their fangs and claws.

Praise him. He really is a good kitty.

[Pithlet]

45. He is a good kitty

We were gently mocking him that he wasn't catching any mice, so he's vindicated himself. He will get an extra special treat.

BTW, the mouse managed to get INSIDE our chair. We tried pulling the chair away to get it to run, and it is no longer there. It could only have gone up into the chair (It's big and upholstered). I hate to sound so clueless, but I wonder if we should just let it alone? I guess we'll smell it if it never leaves :puke:

[dweller]

62. NO LONGER THERE ???

check your pockets...

dp

[bicentennial_baby]

44. He'll be at it forever...

My cats do that quite a bit, seeing as we live in a rural area and have a copious amount of mice and such...It's kinda sick, but hey, that's nature! :P

[Pithlet]

47. Thanks, everyone

for the advice. I've never lived in a house with mice before. I haven't a clue what to do other than traps. Do we need to call an exterminator? How about those sonic things? Is that just a rip off?

[Berserker]

48. PETA says

[fujiyama]

50. We had a mouse a few months ago

It kinda freaked me out. I'm sitting around in the basement and I all of a sudden thought I heard something moving. I look over and sure enough it's a mouse running across the floor.

We bought some kind of glue trap. It didn't kill the mouse but it slowed it enough such that I was able to catch it. I used a yogurt cup (one of those larger cups) and a piece of cardboard. I threw the cup on the mouse and slid the cardboard underneath and threw it outside.

So it didn't require me to directly touch it, but I hated getting anywhere near the thing...Still kinda creeps me out.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

51. Do you object to killing them with traps?

The traps that you can open up, put peanut butter in as bait and close and reuse many times work really well.

[Pithlet]

52. That's what we're using now.

We caught one in the garage that way. I'm hoping they will work. I don't want to have to use the kind that kill, or get an exterminator in.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

53. I was referring to the ones that kill

They break their little backs. I always felt bad when that happened, but I do NOT want a mouse in my house (at least one that's running loose).

[Pithlet]

55. I don't want to use the killer kind if I can help it.

But, I do not want mice in the house either.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

56. Maybe you could put some peanut butter near your chair

Maybe then the little bugger would emerge to get it? But after that, I don't know what happens!

[Pithlet]

58. Me neither!

I hate this. I'm such a city girl, really.

[Berserker]

54. No I prefer this

http://www.skipmorrow.com/html/galleries/cats-frameset.html

[Berserker]

57. Ok I will never

delete photos from photobucket after I post them

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

60. Cute pic!

[dancing kali]

61. I've heard that

the cat isn't really bringing you a present... it's trying to teach you to hunt your own food, silly human. You have a very good kitty.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

65. Good kitty!

Mice stink. I never thought I'd feel so disgusted by such a cute little furry creature, but I do. They're furry roaches, nothing more.
Gooooooooooooood kitty!

[Sgent]

66. Mice control

Mouse control consists of:

1) Figuring out how the mice got into the house, and plugging it up. Do not plug it with wood or sheetrock only -- either a stainless plate, or steel wool should be used in the center of the plug.

2) Killing or Removing all mice currently in the house. Via cat or trap, get them gone. In situations where you have large numbers, poison is considered the only reliable method; however, there are ways to use it to avoid pets and children. IMHO, poison should only be used by an exterminator (who can also help with plugging holes, etc.).

Two items that don't work are:

1) The "ultrasonic" emitters. Although there are a lot of claims, there has never been any supporting research (double-blind). Longitudinal studies indicate that they might bee effective for a week or so, but are not good long term (pests get acclimated).

2) Glue traps. Although they seem effective -- and might be on occassion, they have a downside. Mice who get trapped tend to naw of their feet to escape. Either use a snap trap or some varient, or use a live catch mechanism.

Health issues:

In Tennessee, the Haunta virus is not prevalent (not sure its ever been reported there), although you could speak to your local health department to confirm. Assuming the Haunta virus is not an issue, sweep up and mop any droppings as best as possible, but otherwise they are fairly harmless.

Mice are voracious eaters/nawers. Live mice regularly chew threw walls, electrical wire, clothing, furniture, etc. They can also bite infants or elderly who are unable to care for themselves. Finally, mice can carry ticks and fleas. Dead mice in walls, can occassionaly be a site for secondary pest infestation (maggots, etc), as well as stinking to high heaven; however, this is usually not the case with dead mice.