We had a tiny little mouse take residence at our house this last week. As I expressed on Facebook, I had mixed feelings about the mouse.
It's not the first time we've had a mouse, and I've questioned our cat's worth every time I hear that first shriek from Amanda, signifying that something just scrambled across the kitchen floor.
This time, however, Fabrizio did his job. Not even 24 hours after we first saw the mouse, I came home from work to find Fabrizio totally focused on a corner of the kitchen. He had a lead. Mousecapade was on.
I contributed by removing everything that touched the floor in the kitchen and laundry room -- the two rooms were we found evidence of mouse habitation -- so that when the mouse moved, it had few options.
As I was moving the shoe racks outside, I heard a large crash in the kitchen. I ran in and found that Fabrizio and Gianna had tagteamed and cornered the mouse in an open part of the kitchen, behind one of Sergio's camera bags that I hadn't yet grabbed. Of course, Gianna doesn't realize her size around the house yet and literally crashed into the nearby table in the rush. The standoff in that corner lasted too long to keep the attention of a Collie, so Gianna bailed eventually and the competition was left to the original participants.
The mouse made another move and tried making a run across the kitchen, through the laundry room and outside. This would be ideal for me -- no mouse, no carnage. But the mouse was too aggressive with the move. It had too much confidence in its ability, much like Anakin's final, failed move when he duels Obi Wan. The cat had the high ground.
In mere seconds, the cat had the mouse in its clutches in the laundry room, halfway through the mouse's escape route. I expected a small massacre to follow, but Fabrizio thought the mouse was a toy. He just wanted to play. That's all nice and dandy, but it also resulted in the mouse jumping out of the cat's clutch and scurrying off into a small corner crack.
I grabbed a flashlight and saw that the hole went directly underneath my house. Fine. I grabbed the caulking gun and closed up every crack that the cat thereafter snooped. He had seen the mouse's combination of doors to get in and out of rooms and I caulked them all up. Game over (or I'm not going to think for the short term about what to do with the mouse and friends under the house).
Here's commentary from the cat and dog about the mousecapade.