# Two cats and I had to buy mouse traps



## oms (Nov 12, 2014)

Hello,
Just a funny anecdote. We have two cats- one from a shelter that we think lived outside for the first year of her life and another who has never been outside.
Reese our 2 year old cat is the one that has never been outside. He is the most in-tune to chasing things. Any bug that enters our house is swiftly caught and eaten by him (with the exception of spiders which he catches and I clean up because I think he is smart enough to not eat them lol). So we thought, and always joked, that if we ever had a mouse in the house it would not last long.
Well, Reese has been watching a certain area of the house for a while- it is a fake wall that covers where the water heater is. I figured something was behind it. Well...that something was a mouse and found its way inside our house!
Reese chased and cornered it but then did not know what to do with it. My husband, quite hilariously now that we think about it, grabbed our other cat who had lived outside and gently threw her into the bathroom that Reese had the mouse cornered in. We assumed she would take care of it.
To our utter horror and disappointment she only hissed at it and ran away!!!
So my husband had to catch and dispose of it himself. Quite a fiasco.
We thought we had two fearless, instinctive hunters and we were forever safe from rodents. 
We thought Wrong! So today we bought mouse traps- not for in the house but for around the water heater- tucked away from where the cats could get into it. 
Never thought we would have to buy them lol
Has anyone had similar experiences? :wink:


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## eldercat (Jul 3, 2015)

Hahaha! Yes, I've been there. We had several cats, indoor/outdoor cats. Living in the country - farm country - there were rodents galore, and the house was old and somewhat rickety. Mice found their way in, not surprising. The cats were especially interested in one area of the kitchen - where a radiator was. The mice had a regular highway back there and the cats spent hours looking and waiting, but they hardly ever caught anything at all. Very strange. We also bought traps. It was rather endless, and very tiresome. The wretched things were living inside the walls, under the floors, inside the cabinets, in the drawers. sigh, ugh. Even the family of ratsnakes under the house did not control that mouse population.


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## cat owner again (Dec 14, 2012)

I have gophers. My cat used to catch them but prefers to be in other people's yard. So he clears out the gophers from their yard and I am trying traps to get rid of them.


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## tezster (Jun 4, 2013)

For better or worse, both of my cats are excellent hunters, even in their well-fed, semi-chubby state. Just this past weekend, Newt caught another mouse (outdoors)... I think she actually ate it, which hasn't happened for a long time. She brought it into the house to play with, and after awhile, I could no longer find it (hopefully, it isn't rotting in some hidden spot somewhere). I think I know why she did it... she stopped eating the dry kibble I had been feeding them for some reason. Maybe because the bag wasn't fresh? She can be so picky. 

I've been trying to find a substitute, because my pet food store won't have that brand of kibble delivered for awhile (it's a US brand that has to be imported). Anyway, I think as a form of protest, she ate the mouse. The last time this happened (that I know of) is when I used to take her on leashed walks the first year I took her in.

Newton, although he grew up indoors, learned to love the outdoors and pest-hunting from her mother. He never caught anything. Then a week after seeing his mom bringing in a mouse, he catches one of his own. Like mother like son


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## spirite (Jul 31, 2012)

LOL, thanks for sharing - that story made me laugh. 

The fearless hunter...definitely a myth with my Celia, who once found a very large moth on the wall, a little above the level of her head. When she got closer to examine it, it flew away. Get the moth, Celia! Or not. Run, Celia, it might catch you! Yes, she ran away from a moth.


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## maggie23 (Mar 10, 2012)

thanks for the laugh! 

we used to feed the squirrels ourselves all the time so they knew where to come for peanuts. one day when I was in the kitchen, I looked down and saw a squirrel just sitting by my feet waiting. and over by the door that opened to the backyard, there were my 2 older lady cats flanking the door like dutiful door-women. I'm sure they probably even wished mr squirrelly a good day when he walked by them. hee hee!


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## Adalaide (May 3, 2016)

That is hilarious. I can just picture a human tossing a cat at an already cornered mouse. I guess I should get the notion out of my head that I'll be safe from mice. ChaChi is quite the bug catcher, Taco has a psh, I don't care attitude. I guess neither will necessarily translate to mice if we ever have one. 

Just a side note. We once had a mouse who was quite adept at stealing food from traps. (the traditional spring traps) So I used cereal with a hole in the middle (Lucky Charms, Cheeries, etc) and thread and tied it to the trap. BAM! Caught mouse in just a few hours. Just a trick if you have sneaky mice and lazy cats.


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