eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 01:36pm on 2004-02-26

I think that the oven is a two-cat problem. (Possibly even a two-cats-and-a-human-problem, but maybe not.)

Last night I opened the oven and found myself face-to-face with a mouse, so I scooped up Perrine and tossed her in that direction. She immediately headed into the oven for a sniff around but was too late to catch that mouse, then spent the next forty minutes in active hunting mode, trying to watch the stovetop, the inside of the oven, under the oven, the corner under the counter, and the far side of the fridge, all at once (but she hasn't mastered the skill of bilocation yet, which was an obstacle).

The problem with the oven is that mice can move from underneath to inside far more quickly than a cat -- who has to enter both locations from the front -- can do so. I'm trying to be helpful, but so far I think the only mouse she's caught near the oven was by lying silently in wait underneath the oven for a long time and waiting for one that didn't know she was there.

This afternoon when I was in the kitchen, Perrine walked in, looked at her food dish for a few seconds, then asked me to open the oven for her.

There are 5 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] bill-in-germany.livejournal.com at 11:02am on 2004-02-26
Hmm...I don't think housecats usually hunt in packs.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 10:27pm on 2004-02-26
Maybe not usually, but I have seen it before. It's pretty cool. (Actually, two cats competing for the same prey would work almost as well as two cats acting as a team, as long as one went high and the other went low.)
cellio: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] cellio at 11:24am on 2004-02-26
This afternoon when I was in the kitchen, Perrine walked in, looked at her food dish for a few seconds, then asked me to open the oven for her.

*laugh* Well, at least she's interested in hunting. One of my cats (Baldur the Fairly Slow) would much prefer that the mice call on him. :-)
 
posted by [identity profile] katrinb.livejournal.com at 12:03pm on 2004-02-26
If you should happen to have a friend with a snake who's just shed, or know of a pet store that sells snakes and wouldn't mind giving you a shed skin, sprinkling that around the oven (not in it, as I've no idea how flammable a dried snakeskin is, probably somewhat at least) might help.
Mice fear snakes even more than they fear cats - possibly because a snake _can_ get places cats can't, even considering how liquid a cat can be...
 
posted by [identity profile] still-asking.livejournal.com at 02:59pm on 2004-02-26
Ferret droppings?

Castor has been trying to hunt, but seems to have scared off our mouse. He's quite miffed. It was fun to stalk the mouse. I don't think he caught it, but if he did, he ate the whole thing.

- Karen

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