Saturday, June 30, 2007

I smell a rat

Lizzie keeping watch

Well, I don't, but the cats do. A rat is loose in the house and the cats have yet to apprehend it. They know it's there but the rat is a cunning little beast and has so far avoided them.

This has been apparent since yesterday morning when I noticed Lizzie the cat nosing around the wall heater.

She was absolutely correct in her appraisal of the situation. B only found out when he ignited the heater last evening. There was the rat curled up near the ignition panel. B gave it a poke and it escaped through the bottom of the heater. The cats weren't fast enough to catch it as it ran under the dresser.

Unable to reach it, the cats tried their best. Lizzie had her eye plastered to the back of the dresser, while Willy had his shoulder to the wall, stretching out his paw trying to reach it.

We thought a good cat watch would surely yield a dead rat this morning. Not so. It has now moved to the spare bedroom and could be anywhere in there as rat hiding places abound. I heard it rattle something as I was walking past the room this afternoon and the cats have been keeping watch in a desultory fashion all day.

I have confidence that one or other of the cats will catch it very soon. It must be starving by now so will have to emerge and run the gauntlet.

UPDATE: Sunday
Mission accomplished - rat succesfully eliminated overnight (and beheaded)

2 comments:

Jan said...

WOWEE!
And who did the beheading?

Anne S said...

I have no idea which cat performed the decapitation. I assume it was post mortum.

They occasionally have a bit of a chew on the victim, even eat it all. Sometimes the head is all that's eaten - no accounting for feline appetites.