Rusty 3 - Mice 0

Rusty was at it again, sometime during the night. When I opened the screen-porch door to put out Rusty's breakfast, I saw that he already had eaten. Mice: The Breakfast of Cat-Champions.

Sometime during the night, or early morning hours, Rusty caught another field mouse. He left it in the grass right next to the wood planking of the deck... his usual spot for his catches. I told him what a great hunter he was, then I looked back at the mouse. Not a pretty sight. The mouse's head was there, and so was his backside and his tail. But that's about it.... everything inbetween was missing.

"Rusty! Yuck and double yuck, Rusty!" (He looked at me seriously and I'll bet he was thinking: "I am a cat. What did you expect to find there-- spinach souffle?") I could not, for the life of me, pick up that mouse (what was left of it) no matter what I used. In my mind, I knew there wasn't a shovel long enough or wide enough in our garage to pick up that mouse without my knees getting weak and giving out. Then I'd be in the grass right along-side the mouse.

I went back in the house and asked my husband to please pick up Rusty's latest prize and take it out to the trash can already on the curb for this morning's pick-up. When he got back inside, I asked him if that mouse had really been eaten. He looked at me and said "Mouse... the other white meat."

I don't know what I'm going to do with this cat. I've been letting him stay out on the back deck so he has full run of the backyard, but not full run of the pet-food dishes inside the house. He just doesn't know when to stop eating, and will eat up every morsel he finds in here... whether it be cat food or dog food. Obviously, he's been eating every morsel he can find out in the yard as well. Now I know why he hasn't lost any weight since he's been out there.

Tonight I will try leaving extra food in his bowl just before I go to bed. But if I know Rusty, he won't save it till he gets a little hunger-pain at three o'clock in the morning. He will eat up that "extra" food as soon as he sees it, then worry about his 3:00 snack when he hears little mice-feet dancing around in the begonias.