Not sure this is funny, but it is certainly weird.
For the last couple of days, Juniper has been chasing a mouse that showed up in the house (compared to our last two cats, Juniper is a MUCH more active mouser with a pretty good kill rate.)
Fast forward to this morning. I'm sitting at the computer, Juniper is on the end of the couch. Suddenly, he gets up and looks down on the ground. I can't see what he is looking at from where I am, but, given how he is staring, I know he has seen the mouse and it has come into the sunroom.
So far, this is normal, I expect Juniper to jump down off the couch to try and catch the mouse, the mouse to start running and a chase to ensue with him either catching the mouse or it escaping under the radiator again.
What I am NOT expecting is for this mouse to CLIMB the sofa cover and position itself right in front of Juniper's face, VERY close (if it was any closer, they'd have been touching noses.)
Juniper must not have been expecting this either, as he just STARES at the mouse They stare at each other for a few minutes, then the mouse gets bored and walks away (walks, not runs) along the back of the sofa. Juniper begins to follow it but the mouse stays totally oblivious. There's then a few minutes of "cat and mouse" while it hides in the junk on the floor and Juniper tries to find it.
Eventually, the mouse gets bored and decides to leave the room. Except, rather than skirting the edge of the room under the TV cabinet like most, I decides to take the totally open and unprotected area in front of the table (again, walking, not running) in full view of Juniper sitting on the table.
At this point, it occurs to me that, if this mouse is being so casual, trapping it under a wastebasket so we can release it alive will probably be quite easy. But, by the time I have gotten the basket and left the room, the mouse has returned to under the radiator.
Fast forward a few hours. Dad comes into the living room and sees the mouse in front of the chest of drawers, he goes up to it, and, as it doesn't move, he assumes it is dead and goes to get some bags to get rid of the body. He comes back to find the mouse gone from where it was, and assumes it has run off. He then sees it has only gone a few feet and is again walking vary slowly and casually, making getting it into the waste basket quite easy. He then goes out to release it far enough from the house it does not come back (he has to go a lot farther as than he thinks, since where he wanted to release it was blocked off.) And when he finally DOES find the spot, it takes some effort to get the mouse to LEAVE the wastebasket.
In other words, this mouse was either ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid. I'm sort of glad Juniper didn't try and kill it, if it was acting like that, maybe it was sick with something Juniper could have caught.
And I just have to hope it doesn't come back, or I will have to contemplate that the mouse and Juniper have formed some sort of emotional bond (it does happen between cats and mice sometimes.) and I won't be sure WHAT to do.
Wouldn't want to end up with some carnivorous space kudzu. (See British TV show "The Avengers", season 4, episode 11: "Man-Eater of Surrey Green")
