Mouse!

[farla]

For the past few months, there's been a mouse under the stove. I couldn't actually see it, but I'd come by and see one of the cats settled down for a good stare, and when Stupidcat walked by he'd sniff and get all confused. At first I was really upset because I assumed the cats would get it, and when they didn't I was wondering if it was okay, since the cats seemed to do it at night when I'd expect the mouse to be about getting food and water, but I figured it must be sneaking out at some point. The cat food isn't too far from there and Stupidcat is a messy eater, so there's no lack of mouse chow.

Finally, last night Zo-zo started making her weird muffled cry. Such great timing! She has still not figured out that if she starts doing her victory meows I come and take the prize away. So I ran down and got something on top of it, then found the fishtank we'd emptied and managed to move it by the spider method. I think it's a girl and it's so tiny and so cute. It was also absolutely terrified of me. I had to tip it into the tissuepaper I gave it for cover and it barely nibbled the food I put in. Mostly, it just held perfectly still, for hours on end. I guess that's the behavior you need to survive so long around cats.

Its behavior pretty much confirms my original guess, that it's a toxoplasmosis-infected mouse. It's extremely odd for a mouse to stick around here, especially under the stove of all places rather than a far corner of the basement or under the floor. This clearly was not a brave mouse and yet it would not leave a place that smelled of cat. And that means if I put it outside, it'd just try to come back in.

So, I released it the next town over near some forest with some nice rocks for cover. Hopefully there won't be any cats for it to be attracted to.

Comments

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I thought toxoplasmosis mousies were generally "brave"*, though?

*read: reckless

[farla.livejournal.com]

The strongest effect is what seems like a reversal in their response to cat smells, where what normally would be avoided is sought out. Different variations of the parasite then have further effects, but some research suggests that's partly incidental brain damage where the mice are really just dumber and unable to recognize danger.

This is not the first house mouse the cats have found, just the first to successfully avoid them for so long, so I'm thinking it's on the far timid edge of the normal mouse behavior. I've put many small animals in cages to let them recover before release, and never before have I seen a mouse spend hours without moving. Even when I released it, it just ran into the shadow of a rock and froze. But all normal mice leave the area when they smell a cat and this one would not, so I think something was up.