Tales of a Mighty Mouser

So, once Sunny claimed his place in my bed and my house, our bond was established.  It was pretty humbling how quickly he trusted me.  There are still holdovers from before our time.  He freezes if he's anywhere near my moving feet, which tells me he used to be kicked.  He also heads for the hills if I pull out the broom or Swiffer, which tells me that he used to get hit with one.  Those are two things that break my heart any time they happen.

Anyway, it was the first Saturday in May that I brought him home to my old house.  My place is about 100 years old and a bit drafty.  I also happen to live in a town that is on the verge of a huge rural area.  Are you getting ideas here?

So, at about 4:30 in the morning on the Monday after Mother's Day I was rather suddenly awakened with SCRABBLE, SCRABBLE, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!!  This was a bit of a surprising wake-up to say the least.  There being only one possible source for the the sound, I asked, "Sunny, what are you doing?"  The response I got was a low growl.  THAT certainly got my attention.

I sat up and turned on the light.  There he sat, next the bed, oh so proudly holding the mouse in his mouth, with the tail hanging out.  I think my brain literally froze for a moment.  Thankfully, it came back online quickly and I realized that he was bringing me a gift and having a mouser in my old house was a very good thing, so I managed not to freak (pretty good for 4:30 am!).  Instead, in the nicest voice possible, I told him what a good boy he was and asked him to put it down so I could get rid of it.  It took a bit of coaxing, but I did get him to put it down so I could grab it by the tail through a wad of toilet paper, take it downstairs and toss it out into the bushes.  I brought him several treats and gave him lots of pets and scritches and again told him what a wonderful boy he was.

When I went to crawl back into bed, I noticed something.  There were several tiny red dots on my white comforter.  That was when I came to the realization that he had actually brought the mouse to me on the bed and the noise I heard was him catching it again when it tried to get away.  (Ewww...not the last time he's done that, but that's a story that deserves it's own entry.)  I managed to clean up the mouse blood and Sunny returned to the bed, oh so proud of what he had done.

As Mother's Day presents go, it was definitely unique.

As I sit here typing, he is stretched out on the floor on his back, daintily pulling his front claws through his teeth to clean them.  He needs to make sure they are prepared to protect me from any rodent invaders.  I think he'd be willing to take on an ROUS for me.

That's my boy.