21 August 2007

Purrrrredator

Our little cat is lovable for many reasons, but one of the best is that she is a crap hunter. We don’t have to face decapitated sparrows in the kitchen or dazed rodents in the living room. She likes a quiet life and catching things is just far too much like hard work.

Last night was different, however. We were woken up to hear her banging around the bedroom, running, jumping and generally being noisy. Very irritating at 1:30am, I can tell you. When we turned on the light we discovered she had brought us a mouse. A mouse! All she’s ever caught before is a handful of spiders and the occasional papery moth, but this time it was a mouse. Stunned and playing dead, but judging by the occasional tremor and high-pitched squeak it was definitely still alive - much to Freyja’s delight and our horror.

Recently she had an ear infection so we had to give her ear drops twice a day. Powerful things these ear drops - anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic. One of the possible side effects is that the animal can become less able to deal with stressful situations (like being held down to have something cold and gloopy dropped into your ear, perhaps?). Her ear now seems better, but she is definitely a bit nervy.

I wonder about this nervousness and hypervigilance. Could it be that her heightened state of awareness means that she is now miraculously transformed into some kind of super hunter? An uber-predator, if you will, artificially enhanced and wreaking havoc among the rodents of south Birmingham.

More likely it was just a fluke.

Filed under: Mulch — Clare @ 9:45 am