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Mice love Stilton
In article >,
says...
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:44:34 GMT, Margaret Suran
> > wrote:
>
> > Tandoora, my cat, acted like a true
> > feline, at least an apartment kitty: As long as she suspected there
> > might be a mouse in the kitchen, she hid in my bedroom.
> >
> LOL1 She doesn't like wild animals in your house any more
> than you do.
>
> <snip>
> >
> > I live on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Exterminators come
> > every week to make sure that no kind of creepy crawly things live in the
> > building, yet I have had mice several times before. At those times, I
> > had three cats living with me. The cats would actually catch the mouse,
> > play with it for a while and then let it go. Not once did one of them
> > kill a mouse.
>
> According to what I've heard/read, cats need to be trained
> by their mothers to catch and kill mice. Otherwise mice are
> interesting playthings to them.
That is probably true. Cats do learn from humans and other cats - for
example I believe in the case of the middle cat (Emily, a 6.5lb female
felid) who came into the household at a total of 6 weeks old, we
encouraged the mousing by buying her those little stuffed mice and
helping her play with them.
The youngest cat (Cosimo, 25lb male felid) learned mousing from her I
suspect.
So when the eldest cat finally gives up the ghost I'll have to get a
youngish kitten and go through the same routine. But that probably won't
happen for another 5+ years, the eldest cat (Randy, 11lb male felid) is
only 14 years old.
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