by Jacqueline Price

Created on: September 30, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It was almost midnight when my husband locked up to go to bed. When he checked the back door to let Tiger, the cat, in for the night, he did not notice that Tiger had brought us a gift. Dangling from his mouth was a large brown field mouse, it's little legs struggling to no avail!

I was in the kitchen just about to turn off the lights and also head up to bed when I glanced down to see Tiger with the mouse. I screamed and Tiger immediately dropped the mouse which scampered off into our family room. I don't know who was more frightened, me, the mouse or Tiger. The mouse shot off under our sofa with Tiger in hot pursuit. We quickly removed Tiger and locked him in the bathroom while we tried to think of how to catch the mouse.

The mouse dashed from under the sofa to under the loveseat. My husband overturned the loveseat and then the mouse went dashing around the family room trying to find somewhere else to hide. It made a bee-line for our heating vent which, unfortunately, was missing a couple of slats. It disappeared before we could cover the opening. We heard scraping and scampering on the metal lining the heating duct. The problem was that the duct led down a shaft to the basement and our furnace. The mouse had slid down and could not get back up and there was no way we could reach it or entice it back up even with cheese.

For the next two days we could hear occassional scraping noises from the duct way down in the basement. I began to worry that the mouse would expire, rot in the duct and start to smell when our heating was turned on. Also I felt sorry for the mouse trapped with no food or water in a dark, scary place.

By the end of the second day the scraping was diminishing. I decided to call a furnace cleaning company to see if they could do something. They came the next day and decided the only way to rescue the mouse, if it was indeed still alive, was to open up the ductwork next to the furnace. I waited upstairs while they worked away cutting the metal. Miraculously they found the mouse and it was still alive. It had probably survived on crumbs that had fallen into the vent. The furnace men placed the mouse inside an empty cookie tin and asked me what I wanted to do with it. They asked if I wanted to see it as it looked so cute, but I declined the offer. I asked them to take the mouse out to the green behind our house and release it under a tree. We kept Tiger in for the next few days to make sure he didn't find the same mouse again.

Now we always make sure to check carefully before letting our cat in to make sure he doesn't bring us any more unwanted gifts.

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