A mouse dead and gone
Dancer saw the mouse first, she was chasing it around the coiled up garden hose on the patio. When I first saw it, I thought it was a toad. “Dancer, you know that toad will foam in your mouth, you learned that when you were a baby.” Then I saw the mouse.
Dancer picked up the mouse gingerly with her front teeth. The mouse either bit her or grabbed her with his teeny tiny feet. If you’ve ever been walked on by a grasshopper, you know what a mouse feels like. They grip with their feet and bite just hard enough to startle you making you pull your hand or arm back really fast. She threw him six feet into the air and he landed with a thud on the board walk. Oh, poor mouse, that had to hurt.
Oliver ran to the mouse. I yelled, “Oliver, off.” Oliver stopped and backed up. Dancer ran back to the mouse and I ran for the video camera.
Dancer approached slowly and stealthy like she wanted to touch him but he might grab her again. She braved it, she grabbed him, he grabbed her whiskers, she tossed him into the air again. And then again. At this point the mouse is dead. Dancer sniffs him. I say, “Dancer, don’t you eat that mouse. Leave it for the kitty.” Dancer walks away as proud as she could be, as if she’s just won the gold medal in the mouse Olympics.
Oliver ran up to the mouse again. “Oliver, off!” Oliver backs up and as I’m praising him for leaving the mouse alone, Frankie runs through behind me, and without missing a beat, puts her head down, swallows the mouse whole and keeps on running.
The only thing I got on film was Dancer throwing the mouse into the air.
Life in the wild.
