This cute, fluffy, adorable little blighter has been getting up to some rather impressive tricks recently.
He doesn't enjoy the heat much, or rather, he likes to bathe in the sunshine in spring, but the height of summer is not his friend. You can't blame him, you'd be a summer grump too if you were carrying rather a lot of hot ginger fur (and perhaps a little bit of weight?! - yes, the v.e.t. did mention he should lose a few hundred grams!).
As a result he doesn't venture into the house much at the moment, but seeks out shadier spots under the decking or neighbours trees. Only popping in occasionally to remind us he needs feeding.
So I get all silly. I worry that he doesn't sit on my lap or want to be cuddled, I fear he loves someone else more than us and spends his days with them. I get in a bit of a tizz about it all.
And so Sniff finds ways to show his appreciation, as only cats do. A couple of nights ago we were graced with a midnight mouse hunt. Sniff kindly brought it in to show us just how exciting it can be to chase both him, and said rodent, around our living room. The prize was captured by a very on-the-ball N and given it's freedom, and what we thought was ample time to run and hide before Sniff was allowed out again.
Not so. How could two humans be so bad at this game? The aim is not to free the mouse, but to eat it! Sniff showed us just how we were going wrong by treating us to bit of ex-mouse around the flat the next morning.
Not to be deterred by his humans failings he upped the game. The night we finally got some humidity relieving rain he tried again. We were woken not by the pleasant noises of raindrops on the windows, but instead a very strange sound indeed emanating from the kitchen. Another poor mouse we assumed, so I gaily went out to do my fair share of chasing. In my sleepy haze I made the mistake of not taking my glasses, and so was peering at the strange shape on the floor, thinking how it was amazing that a mouse that spread out could still make so much noise, when it leapt into the air and emitted a mighty croak! It was a huge frog! Goodness knows how this innocent little cat had managed not only to catch the amphibian, but to get it through the cat flap in one piece!
At this discovery all rescue duties were promptly handed over to a very sleepy N. I have nothing against frogs, but they rank with slugs and snails for their potentially sliminess, at least in my head! And I wasn't about to attempt capture, not least because I had no shoes on, nor glasses, nor any idea how to go about the manouver.
In the end it took two of us, one inside and one outside, to coax the poor thing back out into the damp garden, whilst little Sniffer was trapped in the bedroom eeking for all his little lungs could managed (I like to think he was balling instructions about how the game worked!)
Luckily the frog survived the encounter and hasn't been seen since, and our little kitty has been smugly sleeping off the exertion.
What remains a mystery is where the frog came from in the first place. As far as we are aware there are no ponds, streams or water holes anywhere near us.
It truly was a curious incident of a frog in the night time, and shall remain so...
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