CAT-tas-Trophy…
Our kitty, as you might know, is an interesting fellow. He weighs about 20lbs. and he’s not fat, he’s just big. At my old house, there was a small creek that ran behind the house. Kitty often brought me presents since the presence of the creek increased the abundance of critters around. At one point, because I was traveling so much and he preferred outside to in, the food I left for him on the deck became of interest to a family of raccoons and he fought them off too—-and it was 5 fairly large raccoons to one very indignant kitty.
My current home has a detached garage and as happens during winter months, if there is anything kept there that provides food for small creatures, they will become uninvited guests of the domain. Several small field mice apparently discovered a old bag of dry dog food from when Doggie first came to live with us. Old age precludes Doggie from eating dry food anymore and the bag, as often happens in garages, got shoved behind some other junk and forgotten. It was discovered by the mice and so they moved in and invited their friends to come party.
On the discovery of these little creatures inhabiting my extended living space, I promptly asked Darlin’ Boy to dispatch them for me. As I was leaving for the store, he asked that I purchase traps. Further questioned, he stated he wanted the old-fashioned spring traps which I really don’t care for at all. However, since he was going to take care of the mouse problem, I figured I couldn’t complain how he was going about it….
Once at the store, I discovered some alternative traps which were more humane and allowed for the release of the mouse unharmed, so I got both kinds. To my pleasure, Darlin’ Boy discovered that my humane “sticky” traps worked very well and didn’t require bait, so he used those. Over the next several days, several members of the mouse community found themselves stuck to the traps and Darlin’ Boy would carry them to a small wooded area near our house and released them back to their natural habitat.
All was going just swell until a recent morning when I opened the garage door and saw as I stepped in a small grey mouse stuck to one of the traps and struggling furiously to detach himself. Before I could react, Kitty came racing into the garage, ran right pass the mouse, which ceased moving and became still as death. Kitty was intent on another area of the garage at first but quickly “caught wind of” the stuck mouse and promptly pounced.
(I don’t know if I can do justice to what transpired in written form and, to this day, I regret I didn’t have a video recorder of some kind but, hopefully, the following description will provide your imagination with a good idea of what happened…)
Kitty leaped across the garage and landed on the mouse and trap. While Kitty had landed such that he could grasp the mouse in his jaws, he also unintentionally glued himself to the trap. His face, with the mouse surrounded by his teeth, stuck to one corner while two of his paws stuck to the the other side of the trap. As he realized his predicament and began to stuggle, more of his body became attached to the trap. The more he fought the worse it got. The best visual I can think of is the old Looney Tune cartoon character, Tasmanian Devil, who whirled, buzzed and chopped through air, trees and boulders like a tornado.
Kitty flew, flipped, twisted, turned and grappled until the sticky board tore apart separating his face and one paw, while the other paw remained attached to the corner with the mouse. Once mostly separated from the trap, he raced out of the garage, across the drive and around the house. I followed, still hoping to retrieve the mouse, unharmed, and release both the cat and the mouse from the trap.
I found Kitty hiding around the house in the mulch bed behind the shrubs, apparently wise enough not to try and bite the mouse again for fear of re-attaching his face to the sticky board. Unfortunately, the mouse did not survive the Kitty’s whirlwind flight around the garage. After some hesitation, Kitty did allow me to remove the deceased and the remainder of the trap from his paw, though he did remain hidden in the bushes the rest of the day, obviously traumatized.
Kitty doesn’t race into the garage anytime he finds the door open anymore. As for the mouse community, they have departed—whether they witnessed the demise of their friend and ran for their lives or Darlin’ Boy caught the rest and released them into the woods, I’m not sure but I’ll never forget the vision of Kitty’s Oscar-worthy impersonation of Taz! Quite a Cat-tas-trophy! 
