Mousing crisis

Our younger cat, Pete Briquette, caught his first mouse the other day, amid great excitement. Or maybe it wasn’t his first. He may have killed a few during nocturnal undercover work. Certainly, he often comes back from his late patrols with the look of an animal that’s done terrible things in defence of the neighbourhood.

And yet I’m not so sure. As his public mousing debut unfolded, at great length, there was a growing suspicion that he didn’t quite know what to do with his prisoner. And well be mightn’t, because he never had a role model to show him.

Our other cat, Jerry, is now about 150 in human years, and stops sleeping occasionally only long enough to eat and go to the toilet. He hasn’t caught a mouse this century. The most violent activity he can manage these days is scratching himself.

So although Pete had prepared as best he could for the challenge facing him, honing his skills on shoelaces, balls of fluff, and other things that resemble rodent parts, he was forced to rely on instinct in dealing with the real thing.

At first, I watched his efforts with almost paternal pride. “They grow up so soon,” I thought, remembering the day I’d rescued Pete as a week-old kitten in the middle of a bog road in Tipperary.

How he’d got there, I still have no idea. But he was doing a convincing impression of a piece of turf at the time. And it was only his outsized ears, pricking up in terror as another car flashed by, that stopped me driving over him.

Nearly two years had passed since. Now here he was – a sleek, healthy, adult cat. All grown up, and about to torture a tiny, defenceless creature to death. And that’s the problem with feline mouse-catching. Much as you might approve of the outcome, it’s hard to watch the process, which can be appallingly prolonged.

Of course, it’s not because cats are naturally evil (popular though such a belief is) and that they play with their victims before execution. Apparently, it’s a health and safety thing. They have learned over millennia to avoid dangerous bites and scratches by gradually wearing their prey down before the kill.

But it’s impossible not to feel sorry for the mice in these circumstances. They’re such cute animals, even if they do crap in your sugar bowl. And so it was that I would have been very tempted to intervene on this mouse’s behalf, except I thought he had a good chance of escaping on his own.

Pete appeared to lack the necessary focus to get the job done. He repeatedly chased his quarry up and down the road, past shrubs and holes in the wall, and other escape routes, at a careless distance. Then he’d pick the mouse up in his mouth every so often – gently, like a kitten – and bring it back to our lawn, where the catch-and-release ritual would begin again.

Sometimes he seemed to forget his captive altogether, distracted by other things. In fact, at one point, he got hungry and went inside the house for a snack, which was very unprofessional.

The mouse could just have sauntered away then, nonchalantly. But it didn’t – that only happens in cartoons. This one remained frozen where it was, seemingly convinced that the cat’s eyes were still trained on it. That’s what thousands of years of oppression does to a species.

Anyway, it so happened that, the same evening, we had to attend a children's music recital. By the time we left, Pete and his quarry had disappeared somewhere. So we forgot about that drama for a time, while listening to Chopin and Gershwin. Then we came home again, feeling all relaxed and civilised, to find that – quelle horreur! – Pete and the prisoner were still at it.

It was D-Day plus about four hours now. But the torture had merely reached a more brutal stage. The mouse was definitely doomed at this point, having what looked like a broken leg and a truncated tail. Yet his tormentor was still in no hurry to finish him off.

That’s when I decided enough was enough. “Don’t look, kids”, I said grimly, before fetching a garden spade and ending the victim’s ordeal.

In the wake of the trauma, Pete was temporarily banned from the house. As my daughter said, quoting a friend to whom she’d told the story: “How can you love him after that?” But nature is cruel, I reminded the kids, and the cat was only doing his job. We’ve already forgiven the little black-hearted monster. We’ll let him in again, eventually.

@FrankmcnallyIT

fmcnally@irishtimes.com