It began this morning with Jiggy crowing over his catch, and when I found him on the side of the house he was next to a tiny little mouse who rightfully scattered with all bits and appendages thankfully intact when I congratulated Jiggy and then shooed him away from the little rodent.
Trouble is, mice aren’t all that smart and it didn’t take the opportunity to get far away from a house with four cats. Sure enough it wasn’t long before I glanced down the side of the house and found Jiggy looking on while Pepper was playing the cat equivalent of hackysack with this same little fella.
This time after driving the predators away I found the terrified and exhausted mouse was presenting an injured left rear foot. Other than that it looked OK externally and I dutifully corraled it into a tupperware container with some leaf litter and brought it inside where I put it in a quiet corner covered up to recuperate until just a few minutes ago when — with all the cats indoors I took it outside to let it go.
But not before snapping this picture (click to quadruplicate):
Certainly it wasted no time scampering up and away and that was good to see. It’s my hope that even with the owwie it’ll get somewhere safe enough to heal up and continue on with its life.