Today's adventure: Rat or Mouse?

[ailbhe]

I heard a cat growling, and had a look behind the thing he was growling at, and saw a mouse - I thought - and called Rob to deal with it, and we talked about what to do, and he figured catching it in a flexible bucket would be easiest, and he threw the cats out the back and locked the catflap, and he caught the mouse, and threw it out the front (so it wouldn't be immediately brought back in) and then I started to wonder whether it wasn't a little large for a mouse, and I looked at Wikipedia, and now I don't know whether it was a fairly young rat or a large mouse. Brown. Tail. Didn't see its teeth, which is how I usually tell.

Urgh.

Comments

[nicnacpaddywac.livejournal.com]

We fought a disturbingly long battle with mice last year and had some spectacularly large brown ones - so here's hoping that it was indeed a mouse.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

When we lived in Reading, Saash used to bring in disturbingly large rats. Here the local wildlife runs more to voles, and the occasional chipmunk.

[heraldis.livejournal.com]

Mice have fur on their tails, rats have scaly looking tails (they do have a bit of fur but not much)

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

Eeeek!

alison ...

[(Anonymous)]

When we had mice I used to take them to the park so they wouldn't find their way back. Now I would let the dog do his thing.

Hope you don't see any more :)

[gloriap.livejournal.com]

I hope it was a random one who came in through the cat flap door.

Last autumn we acquired a cat for the first time in over 10 years. After a few weeks she seemed to be stalking something and caught a mouse in the kitchen, conveniently near her food dish. I was horrified that my purebred kitty was exposed to vermin so I set two traps.

Within three days I had caught NINE more mice, then none in a week so I assumed the nest had been wiped out. I am planning to set the traps again this week, just in case.

I was and still am totally squicked at the thought.

You have my sympathy.