Mouse plays Possum!

[angieh]

Please don't read this if you are scared of mice!

The cats, well I think mainly Pip because Kizzy eats hers, bring us presents. Nice little furry rodents. Mice, voles, shrews that sort of thing. I have nothing against these creatures but don't like them running around the house because they go somewhere and die and the smell is horrid, even for such small creatures. Usually if they are dead, I scoop them up in some kitchen towel and take them into the garden and put the little corpse under the hedge .... dust to dust whilst committing their souls to Gaia and apologising on behalf of the cats. Not quite so easy when it's dark and pouring with rain as has been the norm lately.

So it was that OH scooped up a wee dead mouse and put it in the pedal bin in the kitchen. Perhaps I should add that OH didn't tell me he'd done this! Next morning, he went out to take Monty for his walk, I was clearing up and went to put rubbish in the bin. A mouse looked at me, took a leap, ran up my arm, jumped off onto the table, then on to the floor, now being chased by Pip.

I took Pip out and put him in the hall and shut the kitchen door. I knew where the mouse was so got the mouse catching tin (we are generally prepared) and a cloth. Cornered the mouse, who froze so I was able to encourage it into the tin with the cloth and so take one very much alive mouse out into the garden and let it run away home.

It seems mice can play possum and pretend to be dead in order to escape being properly killed. Probably a basic survival instinct.