Running Chick

You've met Spencer before. He's darn cute, but he's 16 and doesn't get around as well as he used to. He spends most of his time in this position - This morning, as I was heading out the door to work, I heard a noise that can only be described as a car with a squeaky belt. My initial thought was that I had to get my dryer looked at because it has been making that same sort of squealing/speaky noise recently. Just as it occurred to me that I wasn't doing any laundry, Spencer came banging through through the basement cat door with the source of the squealing in his mouth. He caught a mole! Holy crap! Chaos ensued as I dumped my bags and jacket and freaked out because Spencer was in attack mode and the poor thing was still alive and bleeding all over my carpet. But then I got my wits about me and I realized that this would make a great blog post, so I got out my camera and started snapping pictures. Good Kitty! click! Show Mommy your mouse! click! click! Now put your paw on it! Now pick it up in your mouth! click! click! click! click!....... I was like some insane stage mother or something. Anyway, this is probably the tamest of the photos - The rest are pretty icky, if you so desire (and don't have a weak stomach), check them out in the gallery. Let's just say I didn't realize those little critters had so much blood in them (gross). Anyway, I picked up the poor thing, which was by now dead (I think), and put him outside. I came back inside and found Spencer staring at the blood on the carpet and looking at me all dejected. I gave him many treats as a reward. And spend the next 45 minutes cleaning all the blood out of my carpet. I feel strangely proud of my old man kitty. He's developed this "eh, been there done" that attitude toward bugs, toys, and birds, which I suppose comes with old age, but it's nice to know that he's still got it! ** 9/27/2010 1:30 pm update. There as been discussion about what type of rodent Spencer caught. It's definitely not a mole, as I originally referred. We've narrowed it down to two possibilities: shrew or vole. I'm thinking it was a Northern Short-tailed Shrew. Not that it matters. **