Sammy's Snack

Cats are bound to catch mice if they are allowed to go outside.  Our black cat, Samson, a/k/a Sammy, has done his fair share of mousing through his 13 years of life, but he hasn't limited his hunting skills to mice.  Besides mice, he has brought us frogs and toads, lizards (small ones), one huge rat, two young oposums (one dead and one alive in the same night), multiple birds, and small voles.  Saturday he brought us a mouse which was still very much alive.  Being a nice day outside, we quickly shut the cat door to prevent him from taking his catch inside and then we went outside to congratulate him.  Soon he dropped the mouse on the grass and proceeded to bat it around.  I felt bad for the mouse; it was still alive and squeaking madly.  At times Sammy would walk away and watch his catch from afar, but he always came back to it, especially when the little crittered tried to get away.  That, however, was not possible as the mouse was injured and unable to run quickly.  I videotaped the episode in clips and took some photographs just for the fun of it.  During what turned out to be my last videoclip, Sammy started gnawing on the little critter, who finally had met his demise, and then he ate it -- every last bit of it!  Now, I've seen Sammy eat mice before, but it's been years since he's done that.  I can honestly say I haven't seen him eat a mouse for the last 4 years, ever since he had several teeth removed.
This mouse, however, must have been too good to pass up.