So Clark (my one year old cat) decided he didn't want to come in at all tonight. About 2am I woke up and used the bathroom and decided to check to see if Clark would come in, which he did when I called him. Except, the proud hunter that he is, he brought a live mouse in with him.

I got it away from him and there didn't seem to be any blood so I think it might be ok... I put it outside on the patio blocks, but it was chilly outside and I just kept watching it's little body breathe in and out and I could only think of how cold and in pain it must be...

Currently I've got it sitting on a bed of paper towels in a tall plastic container with a small piece of bread, a piece of cracker, and a soda bottle cap full of water, with a slitted washcloth tied around the top because I couldn't find a cover for it.

I'm hoping it's just in shock and will be ok in the morning so I can let him go... I know some people who might have just figured he was a goner and put it out of it's misery, but I don't have the heart for that. I mean, I felt bad a few weeks ago when I killed a butterfly. I found it with its wings half torn off so I knew it would only suffer and die... I stepped on it and I felt so horrible about it.

Anyone else ever do something similar, or am I the major softie?

No, you are not, I have the same feelings sometimes. Some time ago a bee had flown into my bedroom and didn´t find the way out. I tried to catch it with a glass and a piece of paper and accidentally injured it in the process. I felt so guilty when I had to kill this little bee... But there was no way it could have survived.

I have the same feelings for all animals - except midges and spiders. :rolleyes:

The poor little guy was dead by morning. There wasn't any blood at all, so I'm thinking he might have had a heart attack.

This is the seventh or eighth mouse my cat has brought into the house in the past two months.

I've tried nursing wild birds back to health, but that never worked. I lived in a farmhouse for a few years, and the cats loved catching the field mice they found in the house. The noise the cat made bothered me more than the wriggling mouse it held in its mouth by the tail. (I still have a picture of that one).

No, I was more disturbed at 6am in a darkened room, and stepping on something that *wasn't* the carpet.... *shudder*

I'd want to help it too...

When I used to work at McD's, I used to find ladybugs in the upstairs changeroom/crewroom area. I'd take five minutes always to release them back into the wild.

Totally understand.

Well, that could have been me. I'm totally afraid of insects (especially spiders *shudder*), but nevertheless I try to help them to get outside using a glass and a piece of paper. I just don't have the heart to kill an animal just because it had taken the "wrong" way and came into my house.

From time to time my cats also came inside with a mouse, when I'm lucky they are already dead but one time the mouse was still alive, though only barely and she was bleeding quite a lot. But nevertheless I couldn't kill the mouse and I had to ask my mother to do it

@KatieKate: I also think the mouse died because of shock, there was nothing you could have done

After I had to put my 17 year old cat to sleep I wound up with 2 mice in my house. The things would run across the top of my foot when I was watching TV. I do mean right across the top of my foot. Well I didn't want to kill them so I bought the traps to catch them for release. I tried it just the way they said to do it and any other way I could think of. Didn't work some how they sprang the door before going in which worked by tipping forward from the mouse's weight so I have no idea how they did it.

Anyway I finally gave up and got the old kind that when they nibble on the food trips the spring and thwak - dead mouse. I felt really bad but I was not about to live with them and have them running over my foot in my den. I did give them a nice burial in my yard. Plugged the hole and no more problem. If only they had cooperated I was going to release them in the wooded park up the street.

Kate your lucky. When I was growing up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia we had a neighbor whose cat would catch and kill mice then leave them on their pillow as a present. Finally the husband had enough. Didn't discuss it with the family or anything. Just one Saturday of finding another mouse on his pillow - looked at the cat said you have got to go. Got up picked up the cat and took it to the pound. I love cats but I have to agree with him a cat like that should live on a farm and not go in the mouse. Imagine finding dead, bloody mice on your pillow on your bed.

I'd shut the bedroom door...

Now, I love cats as much as the next guy,
but even worse than a mouse on your pillow
is a cat on your pillow

given that the cat climbed in the window while I was sleeping, then decided that the best place to sleep was on top of my head... I had a really sore neck the next day...

and it happened again and again and again, I eventually learnt to open the window a smaller height, so that the cat could not climb in...

but my hair smelt really bad for ages bc the cat was a male..;// and liked to put his scent all around my room inclusing my bed so that he would mark HIS ??? teritory

Most of my cats thought they were hunters and in fact at one point my daughter's cat was bringing her home live Little Brown bats as presents, at which point we permanently closed the cat door and that stopped overnight. Until recently we'd lived in quiet neighbourhoods where the bird population was decimated more by flying into windows than anything else but our one cat, Kandy, made a point of killing all the mice who overwintered under our neighbour's garden shed every spring and I'd find fat, lazy mice laid at the doorstep for the first warm week of spring.

However we just moved to the west coast and this neighbourhood has a lot of cats wandering around and wild animals like raccoons, both of which could mean problems for our cats so we immediately made a new rule of no cats outside in an effort to reduce the chances of fights and fleas. With four outside doors, two teenagers and four cats we still have the occasional escapee but I've noticed that unlike in our old neighbourhoods, any cat that does sneak out tends to come right back and ask to be let into the house again. Lots of wide,sunny windowsills and loads of basement to prowl around in seems to have helped curb that need to go outside and the chance to watch birds in our next door neighbour's front yard offers lots of tail-twitching entertainment for those moments of boredom....and no little offerings on the doorstep anymore!

Saffron

You will still need to treat your cats for fleas even if they don't go outside. The fleas hitch rides on your clothing and then get on the cat. I know because that happened to me. So just a word of warning.

Well, there is always "Advantage"...my three dogs are on it already and I've been keeping a very close eye on the cats since two of them like to sleep on the bed but so far no problems. We lived on the North Coast for over twenty years and it seemed to be worse up there, possibly because of the higher humidty levels since fleas need a certain level of warmth and humidity to breed well. Never had a day's worry about it when we lived in the Rockies but being on the coast you have to pay some kind of price for the milder weather!