Yesterday I watched a mouse run across the kitchen floor right in front of Clara and our cat Fiona then dash under the dishwasher to safety. Only Clara tried to catch it. I already wrote about how our cat Henry (above in orange) was the worlds worst mouser but Fiona(black) is right up there with him. Henry was awful because he could catch mice, never did anything to them and would eventually let them go. Fiona just seems to be lacking any hunting instinct whatsoever.  I have never, ever, seen her with a mouse. And believe me, in our house, there are plenty of mousing opportunities.  The worst performance by Fiona was about two years ago on a dark and stormy night. OK probably it wasn’t dark and stormy. In fact I really have no idea what it was doing outside, I’m not even sure of the season but I suspect it was winter since that’s when the mice really invade. Whatever was going on outside, inside John and I were both in the kitchen when a mouse ran across the counter and hid behind all our liquor bottles in the corner.

– A note on “all our liquor bottles in the corner“:

We used to keep these all in the pantry before a home improvement disease took over our house.  Now our pantry has no shelves, and things are stacked on the floor or kept in Rubbermaid bins, not a good place for glass bottles so the bottles were relocated to the counter. Now, when I use the word ALL it seems like we are crazy party animals with a full bar but they are actually a strange collection of mostly empty bottles that are  a minimum of 4 years old collecting dust next to one bottle of whiskey. There is no dust on the whiskey.

John and I closed in on the mouse and then tried to figure out what to do. I thought, ” We’ll get the cat, brilliant!” (this was clearly before I knew she was one of the two worst mousers in the world) I ran and got Fiona and put her on the counter next to the bottles.  Then while I tried to keep Fiona focused John slowly started removing bottles.  When we were down to just three or four in the corner (we don’t even drink them I swear they just show up and never leave!) the mouse poked it’s head out and Fiona saw it. “AH HA she’s got it!” we thought, but we were wrong. Fiona went up and tentatively poked her paw behind the bottles.  The mouse stuck it’s head out the other side, Fiona never noticed. John put on an oven mitt (we were in the kitchen after all) and poked the mouse, the mouse ran and stuck it’s head out by Fiona, she poked it back to John…. You get the idea? After this went on for many minutes (while I helpfully laughed in the background) John brought Storm into help. Now Storm is a hunting dog, she has hunting instinct, she is even what is known as a versatile hunting dog, but she is NOT a good counter top mouser. The mouse went back to hiding behind the bottles. Finally John ripped all the bottles out and smashed the mouse with his oven mitt clad fist.

Every now and then John talks about getting another cat. My new criteria is that it has to be a better mouser than he is!