Notes On Charlie - August 30
Charlie made his first kill last week! Eli had spent the night inside with us, and around 4am, I felt him jump up onto the bed where Charlie and I were asleep. I instantly knew something was not OK, flicked on the light, and saw that Eli had a live mouse ON THE BED, to play with for a while before he ate it up.
I screamed at Eli to take the mouse off the bed, but he doesn't obey as well as Charlie does. The mouse was running circles on the bedspread on my chest, I was freaking out - I become a complete cliche when it comes to mice - and Charlie was standing on the bed grinning and wagging his tail, thrilled about all the excitement.
I snapped the covers back and sent the cat and mouse flying, and Charlie leapt off the bed after them. He and Eli ran to a corner where I suspect the mouse had hid in a crack, and moments later, Charlie emerged with the mouse in his mouth. He dropped the mouse onto the floor and, unlike the little feline, had killed it instantly. But Charlie acted like he wanted to hide the dead mouse somewhere in the cabin so I managed to get the mouse away from him with a deer antler, sent Charlie and the cat outside, and flung the dead mouse out the door after them.
75 comments:
My cat (actually named Charlie lol) always catches the mice and plays with them until my dog, a Shiba Inu named Lia, kills them real quick. It is amazing to watch her at work.
I too, turn into a complete girl when mice are around, or even what I think are mice. My husband thinks it is hilarious!
OK -- GREAT story, but I shudder at the same time. I'm the same with mice, only I scream. I don't even know I'm screaming, but I can hear it echoing around me. It's nuts! Thanks for the grin this morning.
Cheers, Karen A.
I get on my kitten all the time for bringing crickets into my house. Doesn't quite seem like such an issue anymore... I see it could always be worse. :/ Cute story, though I can tell you weren't all that happy about it. Nice way to wake up, huh? Critters...
That is hilarious!! Love it. Thanks for the great story to start my morning off with a laugh (although I'm sure you weren't laughing too much at the time!).
Aww, mice aren't anything to be scared of :) My best friend has had several pet rats and they're extremely sweet. I can only imagine mice would be much more so. Still, a wild mouse is different, probably got diseases and all. I know people can't help it, and a mouse suddenly dumped in my bed at 4am is probably something I'd scream about, too. What a cool story. :)
hahahah..oh the pictures..that is in my head right now are very funny...hehhe
Lovelovelove
Hanne
what a team.
Charlie & Eli are unstoppable, I tells ya'.
they will soon be keeping the open range safe for all.
(except those dang meeses, of course)
I have this awesome mental image where the cat and mouse goes flying after you snap the covers, and of Eli and Charlie crouched outside the door later going "What did we DO?"
Now that is hysterical. I would love to see that scene.
Ahhh, the famous "mouse dance". I have a simular dance for snakes, roaches and big spiders. Each has a leg kick variation and the pitch/tone in my voice differs depending on the size. Glad the mouse is gone though! Good luck sleeping tonight!
You tell a great story and I laughed all the way through it. I stop here everyday and enjoy every post and picture of yours.
I've had my old roommate's cat bring in anything ranging from lizards & frogs, birds, rabbits, and baby squirrels! Luckily mine only go after the lizards. Much easier to catch . . . and clean up if they actually do kill them.
Well, so much for Charlie losing his instincts after living with you!
When I was a kid I picked up my kitty without thinking about it (cos he loved to be held). He dropped a live mouse down my (then, very fashionable) ripped, Flashdance-esque sweatshirt.
Yeah.
As a weird result, I'm over the mouse thing entirely. I find them almost cute, in that diseased, pleasedon'ttouchme thankyouverymuch kind of way.
But the lizard tails--ugh. One wiggly lizard tail is enough to send me back to a place where the floor is made of hot lava and I must travel via furniture stunt-jumping and rowing a rolling office chair around with a broom.
good on Charlie! Think he was trying to hide it for a later snack?
mice and spiders always pull a scream out of me. My fearless protector, Jake, immediately runs from the room to hide until it's safe again. sheesh!
Now fer a guy's comment: I suspect that soon Charlie will catch his own mouse-=snacks all by his lonesome. My part coyote dog was a better mouser than any cat I ever had: one snap and a gulp and a satisfied look on her face. Give him another month or two and you won't ever see another mouse around yer house
Way to go Charlie! My cat is a mouse/mole/bird killing machine - he doesn't play before he kills, but he never fails to bring me his gory "prize". I know he is doing it as a sign of respect for me, so I don't freak (unless I step in a pile of guts in the middle of the night). I also am a critter-freak, so things like that don't bother me...
But Charlie! I've never seen a dog make a kill before (yeah, I know, he's not a "dog"). Next thing you know, he'll be dragging home rabbits for the soup-pot...
do wild coyotes hide food for later? i am curious as to his desire to hide stuff around the house.
my well fed dogs (a german shepherd & a beagle/lab) still have the instincts to kill small creatures (nailed a bunny rabbit a few months back...little german boy proudly carried it to me as i stood in horror). i wouldn't think charlie would lose that reaction. especially with big brother eli to show him what to catch!
that's an awesome story. thanks for sharing.
The last time I had a mouse in the house I was on the chair in the kitchen yelling for my kitty (who when younger used to gobble up birds and mice at an alarming rate) to get the mouse. She was actually sitting there cleaning her paw while the mouse sat right behind her with both of his paws up. I swear he was cleaning his too!!!
Cathy in Washington
This is the funniest thing I've read in awhile. Once in high school I went to spend the night at a friend's house after being out late, and came into the house to find her mother standing on the dining room table screaming to beat the band while her husband chased a mouse with a broom. Good times. Glad someone knew to kill the darn thing, Charlie is a good boy!
Oh the irony! She screams with fright at the mouse on her bed . . . yet cuddles with the coyote curled up next to her on the same bed. (tee hee)
Chris
Almost the EXACT same thing happened to me last winter. My cats dropped a live mouse in to the bed with me, thinking it was a lovely gift I suppose, and the poor thing just sat there shivering with fright.
I don't flip out about them though so scooped the little one up in my hands and brought him outside. Thank goodness my neighbours didn't see me though - there was no chance to put clothes on!
Yay Charlie!
Great story! I want a coyote.
I'm still laughing. For some reason this story makes all of you seem more real. When I lived in Alaska my cat used to bring her kill in to us too. A cold toad on the bed in the middle of the night might be ickier than a mouse. Or not. We had voles, not mice. I had my cat trained to take the dead ones and drop them in the toilet - almost a daily happening since we lived out of town.
I just looked at the picture of Charlie in the snow. His coat is so rich and luxurious because of the cold weather. Charlie is so gorgeous in that picture I actually got tears in my eyes. Shreve, I just can't express how much I love your blog and how much it means to me. Thank you for it.
Don't feel bad, I also turn into a complete cliche with spiders. My theory is the only good spider is a dead spider. Thankfully Jack-the black cat, likes to eat spiders as a snack.
How long did charlie and eli stay outside for?
Do you think that was wise? (throwing the mouse after them) What if Charlie thinks you're playing a game and brings it back? (Or does he not do that... is that just a dog thing?) Anyway funny story, and as for freaking out a bit, there's a big difference between a mouse wandering around the floor... or in the attic... than IN YOUR BED. Yech.
I was both shuddering and laughing at that scene. I don't blame you one bit for losing your cool . Who wants a rodent in their bed? I'm glad that Charlie is learning to earn his keep around there!
That has got to be the cuttest story ever! It was written so well too, because I felt like I was seeing the entire thing :) Thanks for sharing.
That has got to be the cuttest story ever! It was written so well too, because I felt like I was seeing the entire thing :) Thanks for sharing.
ROFL!!!!!!
Aww that was great!
I wonder if it is natural coyote behavior to bury things for later, does your friend know?
How would you feel if you, say, brought someone a gift and they reacted the way you did? When a cat brings you a stinky dead thing, or a stinky live thing, it is a gift! IT'S AN EXPRESSION OF THE CAT'S LOVE FOR YOU, you ungrateful cad!
Poor Eli! Poor baby!
Ha! Great story. I opened up my condiments drawer the other day to find that some mouse/mice had bitten into every packet of ketchup. Like every time they were all, "damn ketchup again!".
You gave me my first good laugh of the day! Thanks!
I love your blog - Charlie is a dear.
annbb
I can still remember my horror when my six-month-old Border collie caught her first squirrel while I was watching.
She swung it left, then right, snapping its neck and then casually dropped it as she came toward me. She never looked back at the carcass, totally confident she had dispatched it.
The cool efficiency--completely instinctual--astounded me.
wow, an exciting night for you all, I can see it all so clearly. Thanks for the laugh! Val
Reminds me of watching our spastic cat kill a mouse and then being so disappointed when it wouldn't play anymore.
Makes us remember that for all our anthropomorphizing of our animal companions, they are still animals with all their instincts. It makes it mean so much more that they choose to accept us and adapt to our strange ways.
Ha Ha Ha! I can just image what a scene that was! My cat has brought me gifts before, but not ones that are still alive and on the bed while I was sleeping! Yikes!
Maybe Eli was showing Charlie what to do, "Hey, wake up and get to work catching these!!!" Or maybe Eli has learned a new trick... "Hey Charlie, watch Mommy jump up dancing and singing when I give her this lovely tasty treat!"
Ha Ha Ha, I'm going to laugh over this a lot today... Thanks Shreve for your wonderful blog that lets us share these wonderful critters.
Ah, yes, the joys of sharing life with pets that don't have the sense to sleep at night.
Very funny story!
I've got one cat, Grizelle that started raiding a squirrel's next, because for four nights I kept getting baby squirrels in the house. Live. All got released except for when another cat, Kitto, came in behind her and grabbed the squirrel in his mouth and ran outside for a squirrel snack. At least he didn't eat it inside.
Cat doors are wonderful.
Grizelle brought the baby in live to try and teach our latest edition, Lily, how to hunt. Even if she's close to a year old now. I've rescued frogs, anoles, skinks, moles and mice so far... This year.
That's hysterical! I'm okay with mice - have often picked them up, warned them about the bad cat-monsters in my house, then throw them out the door.
But one night my expert mouser kitty tried to bring one to the bed. Yup. Got all girly...
With two mousers, maybe you won't have to see anymore!
Mouse in a cage? Fine.
Mouse in my bed with lights off? Shudder.....the stuff of nightmares!
Go Charlie!
My bengal brought me a baby possum (alive, well and uninjured) to me in the middle of the night- placed it very carefully next to my head to take care of...didn't know I could wake up so fast!
And people worry that you'll stifle his natural instincts!
I had a similar thing happen in my suburban home but it was a small RAT. (imaging *that* on your bedspread). I blocked it from getting down the hall to the bedrooms - after chasing it down the hall, through our kitchen remodel, into the living room, under and up through the sofa bed - while the completely INDIFFERENT cat sat down for a spit bath. I had to bring in the dog to finish the job. And a quick job she did!
All 3 very domestic dogs we've had have been rodent hunters/killers.
When cats have brought me "gifts", they fortunately were already dead. Don't want to think about what happened while I was asleep or away. The only grace(and grate)ful way to be (so I was told) is to pick the thing up, praise the cat and place it in the bin with a hidden expression of disgust. Thank god I have never been confronted with a live mouse running around on my bed. That, my dear, I'm sure would be a different story altogether. Hysterical would not even touch it. LOL
You are living THE life, lady.
I've had a long line of mousers. One cat I had liked to leave me half a mouse... not the top or bottom, but the right half. I used to think of him holding the dead mouse down with one paw and very carefully cutting it down the middle with a claw on the other.
I also sat bolt upright in bed once, convinced there was a mouse under my pillow. I had never seen a mouse in this house, and I convinced myself I was dreaming... but just in case, to make myself feel better, I flipped the pillow back-
-and there was this tiny little baby mouse, scared out of it's little mind. We both squeeked and dove off the bed. I never saw it again.
Love the Charlie stories, keep 'um coming.
First time commenting. Thank you so much for sharing Charlie's story with us! The picture of him in the snow is lovely. I'm really excited that you're updating the q&a section regularly.
Also, I want to say how I really enjoy all the commentors' stories as well. =)
Hold on a second; where are the photos??!!
;-)
Love the blog. And can't wait to see how the story of Charlie turns out.
aw, I love mice. XD I'm only afraid of spiders. Our cats bring home mice all the time, but I catch them and release the mice if they're alive. I actually have no problem with catching mice with my bare hands.
Rats are very sweet and intelligent, too.
Good boy, Charlie!
Instinct is a funny thing, isn't it? My dog growing up was an Alaskan malamute and still VERY possessed of "wilderness dog" instincts. She'd kill a mouse before you could even see it, and she once killed an entire opossum family during the night; we woke up to see a line of dead opossums stretched across the lawn, as if they were crossing in single-file and she killed them one at a time.
My parents' new dog is also an Alaskan malamute, and if anything is even more wolf-ish looking than the previous beast, but has none of the same instincts. She catches baby opossums in the yard on occasion, but she carefully carries them around in her mouth, occasionally setting them down to lick, then stacks them with the rest of her stuffed toys (at this point, my folks always take the dog on a walk or into the house, and the opossum is invariably missing again the next time she goes outside).
Hysterical! Good thing Charlie was there!
Shreve, I just looked at the pic of Charlie in the snow and he looks full grown and very healthy. How old is he now and has he ever shown any inclination to live outside? I would think that since he spends a lot of time outside with Eli and you that its all right with him that he gets to sleep inside.
Mice and furry creatures don't bother me as I grew up with gerbils, hamsters, and mice for pets. Anyway I had five cats at the time of this story and a couple of hamsters. I was standing in the bathroom drying my daughter's hair and casually peeked down the hall. I froze at the sight of my large black and white cat walking toward me with one of our hamsters swaying gently from his mouth. Pure panic engulfed me at the mayhem that was going to ensue if the cat ate the rat! My kid would freak and I surely wouldn't be too happy either.
My cat walked right up to me and laid the hamster gently between my feet. Completely unharmed, not even a drool mark. He looked up at me like, "Excuse me, I believe this is yours?" and then walked away twitching his tail like his work was DONE for the day.
Did this cat have no instincts? He certainly did. He was hell on mice that came in uninvited. But all our cats seemed to know that the hamsters and gerbils were family and not to be touched so they never bothered them. Stange but true.
I had to laugh Shreve. Somethings are universal.
I have a Cairn Terrier and a long hair cat that live in my house with me. They have a tag team going when it comes to critters in the house - the cat, Samantha, will catch the mouse walking around with the tail sticking out of her mouth until I see her and yell for Sassy to kill it. Sam immediately spits the mouse out. Sassy, the Cairn Terrier, rushes to scoop up the mouse in her mouth, instantly breaks its little neck and spits it out and walks away with this attitude that she has saved the world and her job is done!
Thank goodness neither have taken to eating them! I just scoop up the little rodent with a fireplace shovel and flush it down the tolite. All I have to say to Sassy is "kill it" and she is on the hunt.
Horray for Charlie!
You've got a freaking coyote in your bed, and it's the mouse that scares you??
(just teasing)
=]
My Belgian sheepdog has a high prey-drive. She's finished off a few mice and moles (voles?), and would probably do the same to any squirrel or cat she caught.
Well, she actually did catch a cat once, but I pried her jaws off in time and the only blood drawn was Kira's! The cat bit her on the tongue.
I asked my trainer if she could be convinced not to go after cats, at least; he explained that the joy of pursuit lights up doggie pleasure centers as much as sex, and I'd just have to work around it.
Lol.....that's hilarious.
Ok....so it's not really a Wild Kingdom-type of 'first kill' for a coyote, but it's still his first! *hand claps*
Good Boy Charlie!
Were you so proud of him? I was really proud of all of my pets when they made their first kill. It sounds so sad, but it's amazing to see that as housepets, they've kept that instinct. That was a great thing in Charlie's case especially!
Dirk said...
You've got a freaking coyote in your bed, and it's the mouse that scares you??
--------------------
This was an hilarious comment!!
It just dawned on me, but do you think Charlie will turn on the Roomba if loses another mouse? "Food" for thought, lol. :)
Talk about partnership. Hahah..that's pretty cute (and freak-out-ish for you). I'm sorry to hear that a mouse was making wheelies on your chest.
:(
Our wild coyotes are almost as efficient as our wild foxes at catching and dispatching (quickly) the rodent where we live. One day we watched a local coyote catch and consume 7 mice/voles in 20 minutes.
Our mixed breed GSD/Lab was awesome at mouse catching as well, but we never let her eat them. We put them out where the wild things could get a free meal.
G in SE INdiana
What is it about cats - how they love to "play" with their victims?
Mind you I wasn't a very nice boy either. Living in Ghana as a boy, I had killed a spitting cobra, our gang of kids had dug it out of an ant hill - I took the twitching body back home and threw it on my mum's bed - she was having a rest - she nearly had a heart attack. So maybe our cat is a kind of revenge on my early sins?
I am sure that the Angels have good things in store for you though
Rob
I loved that story! Congrats to Eli and Charlie! I can remember when I was a kid, I had three cats, and they would bring live animals in the house. One time, it was a bat, and another time it was a crow! They also would leave us moles- 3 or 4 lined up in a row! So be glad it was just a mouse! =)Though I have to admit to getting freaked out by mice too.Once I picked up this rolled up carpet (in the barn) once, and there was a mouse nest in it. Ack!
That is hilarious, but only because it didn't happen to me. I would have been yelling my head off too.
jans funny farm
That is SO funny!
Doncha just LOVE stuff like that!
How fun. mouse games!
Coyotes in my neck of the woods have taken to preying on deer. There are no wolves in my neighbourhood...the closest are on the other side of a very wide river... but there are alot of deer and alot of coyotes. Found the better part of a deer today. Amazing what coyotes can do.
that having been said, I kind of wish I had one in the house to deal with MY mice. Hell of a story.
Omigosh, poor mouse but how funny is that story!! :D You had me laughing imagining the whole picture in my mind. My sister had a cat that would bring dead mice and put them on her bed. A gift, my sister said. :) All my cats are indoor cats so I don't have that problem thank God! :)
He's earning his keep and protecting you. :)
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
(that is all)
ah yes- cats and their "presents". one of my cats used to regularly bring home live creatures of all sorts - mice, birds and the occasional rat. i think she was hoping to improve my hunting skills - and actually, i did get pretty good at catching mice and birds. the rats, though, i wanted no part of - they bite! the mice were more stoic, so i was always happy to rescue them.
hope charlie doesn't learn the habit of bringing his prey home from eli!
I was once befriended by a rotweiller puppy of the host I was staying with.
She was always waiting for me to get up in the morning and always went to sleep next to my bed.
The last morning I was there she must have figured out I was leaving because she brought me a present during the night: the fore leg of a dead dear she'd gnawed off was sitting on the floor next to my sleeping bag.
I love animals. ;)
These are cute stories about mice and crickets but cats and coyotes are horrible predators with no natural enemies. They aren't as lovable when destroying young pheasant and quail. When was the last time you have even seen a ground hog? All killed by the cats and coyotes. This is why responsible hunters kill both when they encounter in the field.
Ugh, how horrible. Killing is not OK. In fact, it is barbaric. It is crystal clear from this post that sheer barbarism rules the state of Wyoming. To hear of someone so happily taking the life of a living thing makes me ill and ashamed of who I am, everyone I am related to, and all of my ancestors.
Wait a minute.
You said CHARLIE did it?
Oh that's all right then.
Post a Comment