Gizmos hunting expeditions are showing no signs of stopping any time soon. Since the dead shrew I was ‘given’ a few weeks ago, the gifts have continued…

Being a 10 month old kitten, Giz is constantly reminding me he is a ‘growing boy’ and seems to demand a lot of food each day, often targeting different people in the house in succession to beg them to feed him. This would be a clever tactic, but as we all talk to each other, and we know what he is up to, Gizmo has found himself out of luck when it comes to getting extra food recently!

One evening, he was continuously pestering me for food; running round my legs, doing his (very cute but potentially dangerous) belly flop/forward roll right in front of me, and squeaking at me, but as he had already eaten ALL of his food for the day, plus extra food, I told him that if he wanted something more to eat, he should go and find it outside. He jogged off out the window, and to my surprise, 30 minutes later, he returned home with a moth. This wasn’t the sort of nutritious delicacy I envisaged him bringing home, but I praised his efforts. I think Giz planned on ‘exchanging’ the moth for another bowl of food, but when this didn’t happen he stomped off outside again, leaving the moth fluttering in the hallway, before I released it through the front door.

The following morning in the dark hours, I was woken but a weird noise from somewhere in the house. It was an intermittent ‘thud’ noise, and I suspected Gizmo had emptied his toybox again and was demonstrating each of his toys in the hallway. I cautiously opened my bedroom door, but saw no toys. Instead, I saw Gizmo sat with one paw in the air, targeting his prey…a LIVE shrew. This was the first live ‘gift’ he has brought home, and I was determined to try and rescue it. I went into the hallway to work out how I was going to distract Giz.

Before I had a chance to come up with a plan, Giz turned round to look at me, and the shrew saw his opportunity for freedom and legged it through my open bedroom door and into the dark room. Giz saw the tail disappearing at the last second and also legged it into my room. I know that Gizmo has more ability to see in the dark than me, but I decided to turn the bedroom light on, so that I could try and see the shrew too. No luck. Hmmm… I sat on my bed, waiting for signs of movement. After a few minutes, I saw the shrew run behind a wardrobe, but Giz saw it too. Luckily for the shrew, Gizmo couldn’t get behind there.

So for the next hour, Gizmo and I sat, patiently waiting for the shrew to reappear. When it did emerge, Giz was quick to grab it, and run into the hallway. He wasn’t going to let Mr Shrew disappear again! I’d already got my hands on a tiny glass jar, so that if I got the opportunity to catch the shrew, I had somewhere to put it whilst I rescued it. So the drama continued in the hallway. Giz and Mr Shrew were both underneath a cabinet. So there I am, kneeling on the floor of the hallway, in my PJs with my fluffy red dressing gown on. I reached under the cabinet with the jar to try and catch Mr Shrew, but I missed. However, the shrew came running straight towards me and disappeared inside my dressing gown.

Giz saw the shrew running towards me but luckily Giz ran round the outside of the dressing gown and didn’t see the shrew run inside! So there I was, kneeling on the floor, with a kitten frantically circling me looking for his ‘misplaced’ shrew, and there I am, trying to locate the shrew inside my dressing gown without being obvious incase Giz decided to get in there too?! I found the shrew had climbed towards my elbow, so I grabbed the glass jar and held it underneath him as I swiftly walked through the house towards the back door.

I’d almost made it to the back door, when I felt something moving next to my arm, and the shrew dropped to the floor in the conservatory. Oh s*!# I muttered. Luckily, Gizmo was still in the hallway and hadn’t followed me, so I had a few minutes to recapture the shrew and get him outside. This was much easier without Gizmos help!!

Once the shrew was in the jar, I needed something to slide under the jar to ensure he didn’t escape again. The first item I came across was the menu for my local Chinese restaurant, so I slid that under the jar, and finally got Mr Shrew outside. I released the shrew at the bottom of our garden, and watched him run off into the hedgerow!

Phew, crisis over! Gizmo continued to search for the shrew for several hours after its release, and although I felt guilty for depriving him of his latest gift, I couldn’t sit by and watch him torture it! So it was a happy ending for the shrew…I just hope he wasn’t traumatised after reading the Chinese menu, thinking he would be the next dish on the ‘specials board’?!