Critters

I think I've mentioned in the past that our big fat black cat Pie Bear has diabetes, diagnosed last summer. We've struggled all year with how to treat him, unhappy with our new vet, unable to afford repeated tests. I admit I haven't been as committed to the problem as I should have been. I'm tired of dealing with cats with major health problems. I should just get a stuffed cat, or better yet, a plastic cat. Grrrr. OK, anyway, in February, Rocket Boy (who is much more committed to the problem than I) took Pie to the Humane Society vet clinic and they sold us a new food for him, Purina DM. Unlike Science Diet, the Purina vet diets really work, and Pie started losing weight (as he very much needed to).

But then he began refusing the new food. Back we went to the Humane Society for the chunky version. He ate that for a while, but then it was no good either. We tried Trader Joe's cat food. We tried dry food. Eventually he wouldn't eat anything at all, so we went back to the vet. She told us to buy new fresh insulin (we were still using the bottle we'd bought last July) and tempt him with treats. This morning, after a few days on the new insulin, Pie started eating again. He seemed like a new cat, slimmed down and perky.

Great, right?

This evening, as Rocket Boy and I were sitting at our computers in what boos call the "desk room" because it has five desks crammed into it (don't ask), I heard a really weird noise which took me a moment to identify as Pie. "What is it, Pie Bear?" I cooed, as he came marching down the hall and into the room. "MrrrOW!" Pie said, and then I noticed in the dim light that his mouth looked weird. "What's wrong with his mouth?" I asked Rocket Boy, who was not paying attention, and then suddenly I knew.

"I think he has something!" I said, jumping up on my chair. "Look at him! Look! Does he have something in his mouth?"

"What?" said RB, annoyed at being interrupted. I ran into our bedroom and climbed up on a chair in there.

"I think he has a mouse!"

"Would you come back here?"

I jumped off the chair long enough to close the door to our bedroom and then jumped back on the chair.

"You're not helping!" Rocket Boy shouted from the other room.

"See what he has! Does he have something!"

"Can you get me a flashlight?"

"No! I don't have shoes on! You get a flashlight!"

As you can see, we have a very cooperative marriage. Eventually Rocket Boy found a flashlight and determined that Pie Bear had indeed brought us a mouse, which was now under my desk in a little safe area where Pie couldn't get at him.

Can you see him back there in the corner? He was very cute and very small and did not appear to be seriously injured.

Rocket Boy decided this was worth waking the twins up for (we'd closed their door about 30 minutes before), so we all gathered in the desk room to figure out what to do about the mouse. Pie Bear of course had his own ideas, which included getting the mouse to come out from under my desk so that Pie could present it to us properly.

I refused to help with anyone's ideas, but RB is very resourceful, and he coaxed the mouse into a wastepaper basket and then took it outside and put it near the compost bins, which is probably where Pie found it in the first place.

Pie sat on the kitchen floor looking extremely disgruntled. Just now I went out there to try to take a photo of his disgruntlement, but he had vanished. That is to say, he had gone back outside to look for another mouse.

In the almost six and a half years that we have owned this cat, he has never brought us a mouse, or any other living or dead critter. I've always said, complacently, that he was too fat to catch anything. Apparently that has now changed.

I don't want mice in my house! Or birds. Or snakes. I'd rather fatten Pie back up again, but that would be bad too, of course. It's a little late to try to turn him back into an indoor cat. Maybe he'll start wandering the streets, too, and get hit by a car. He's always been such a lazy cat -- goes outside, sits in the sun, comes back inside, sits in a warm spot. No wandering. No hunting.

That plastic cat is sounding better and better.

Meanwhile, no more going barefoot indoors.