Kindra said her first thought was: “This must be a cartoon. It’s not really happening.”
But, yes, it actually was happening.
Our two cats, Bagheera and J.R. are 16 and 15 years old, respectively.
J.R. is as fiesty as ever and can still jump like a kitten and cavort, but Baggy lost a lot of weight and just generally looked like his health was failing.
Kindra wondered if maybe it was because he was having trouble eating the dry cat food we’ve served for years, so we bought him a few cans of moist food.
He loved it, so we bought three dozen more cans and let him eat all he wanted. J.R. would join in and soon the house would resound with the noise of cats smacking.
It’s hard to tell because Bag is as black as a shadow and his contours don’t show up well, but Kindra and I believe he may have gained an ounce or two since we changed his food.
Kindra had just put a can out on a paper plate in the kitchen floor on the day in question when, suddenly, a mouse dashed from underneath the cabinet and shouldered his way up to the food.
“The mouse was eating with the two cats, and they just let it,” she said.
Baggy eventually decided his image was suffering due to the mouse, so he chased it away, but not before it got a bellyful of cat food, Kindra said.
Since we live kind of in the country, we have a mouse or two pass through every now and then, but they’re not a recurring problem.
Which is good, because Baggy and J.R. are pathetic failures as mousers. If something wears fur, they treat it as part of the mammalian brotherhood and leave it alone.
Monroe, the 90-pound dog, is a good mouser and I have video of her offing a rat in the backyard. She’s our go-to when we need a mouse apprehended, but this event unfolded too quickly to get her involved.
I figure the mice don’t know that Baggy and J.R. are wimps. They smell cats and figure they are at deep risk of becoming breakfast, and leave the house alone.
Except this one. I don’t how he discerned that Baggy and J.R. posed no threat whatsoever. Maybe he learned to speak a little cat along the way and thought he’d try to bluff his way through.
It worked well enough to get him a free meal. This time. If he comes back, I figure it’s reason enough to get Monroe involved.