How High Can a Mouse Climb?
There’s no where to go but down.
I’m awakened by sounds of scuffling and the burbles that Starlight is famous for uttering. It’s 1:30 a.m. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa due to my ascension symptoms, so I’m right there in the living room.
The sounds are soft, but don’t stop. What is the Mischief Team up to at this hour?
- Starlight isn’t listening to me. I wonder why.
My first reaction is to complain. Why are they waking me up? Starlight is perched on the back of a chair staring up at the ceiling.
“Starlight, get down.” I insist. Starlight, who usually is very attentive and does as she’s asked, ignores me. Hmmm. What’s going on here?
So I get up and grab the spray bottle full of water. Starlight hates being sprayed and I’ve agreed not to ever spray her as long as she responds to my requests. She’s ignoring me. I shake the bottle. She still ignores me.
Well, now I’m up and I don’t really want to spray her so I shuffle over to where she is. What is she looking at? I turn on the floor lamp and to my utter astonishment, there is a mouse on the ceiling.
OK. So the mouse photo is blurry, but it’s 1:30 a.m. and I’m not really very awake, but there is the mouse wishing it could go higher. I’m speechless. And I don’t have a clue what to do.
Starlight keeps making her sounds of frustration – little “Errrs” and “Erms” that indicate how much she really, really wants to get up there. But Starlight doesn’t like heights as much as other cats, having been a horse in her last life. So she finally gets off the chair and Melissa takes over.
- Melissa’s mental wheels
- are spinning.
Melissa is sizing up the situation. She’s not vocalizing at all. She’s calculating just how high up the mouse is, just how much of a leap is required. Can you see the wheels spinning in her head?
Melissa jumps. She lands on the wooden beam just inches below the mouse and begins to slide downward.
The mouse is terrified. It leaps into the top of the floor lamp. (See photo below of floor lamp.)
- Floor lamp from the 1950’s.
- It’s HOT in there!
Melissa arrives at the floor and jumps onto the back of the chair again. She knows where the mouse went and is eyeing the lamp. Now I’m concerned that she’ll jump up there, too. I really don’t want that lamp destroyed and it will go down for sure if she lands in it.
Fortunately, there are incandescent lights in that lamp, and the mouse is finding that spot too hot for comfort. Before I can grab Melissa, the mouse leaps down onto the floor and Melissa goes right after it.
Now the chase is on once again.
Do I have sympathy for the mouse? Not much. The cats are young and are doing their job – keeping other animals out of the house. They’re well fed and won’t kill or eat the mouse. They’re just making sure that rodents don’t hang about here.
- Mouse: “This wasn’t the best plan.”
- Melissa on the left.
- Starlight on the right.
- Team work for sure!
- Time to consider some other options.
- Where’d that mouse go?
Where’d that mouse go?- Mouse catching it’s breath.
So the mouse soon got away. It got into a corner of the baseboard radiator. Where the pipes come in there’s plenty of space for a mouse to squeeze through.
The cats finally settle down. I praise them highly and go back to bed after awhile.
I have taken mice away from Violet and Sakhara when it seemed the mouse would be injured during exhuberant play.
This is not a situation where a cat is hunting for food. The Mischief Incorporated Team is doing their patrol duties. If they do them well, the mouse will have learned that coming into my house is just not worth the risk and will go about it’s life elsewhere.
Lucky and hopefully smart mouse who will find a safer place!
Unfortunately, the mouse, or one who looked just like it, showed up this evening just a few minutes ago. The Team was ready, and so was I.
The mouse was still on the floor and quickly cornered by Starlight and Melissa. I told the mouse that if it had any sense at all, it would let me catch it in the container so I could take it to a safer place. It quickly cooperated with me and I put it outside.
I told Melissa and Starlight that they did a great job cornering the mouse so I could remove it, and they were pleased with themselves.
Of course, I don’t know that this was the exact same mouse. Perhaps a cousin or spouse or sibling. In any event, the Team gets 4 gold stars and I get, hopefully, a peaceful night!
Hi Nedda,
There’s something I am not understanding.
I see a need for a spray bottle handy for young over-excited kittens or newly introduced cats who may get over-aggressive,
But why would an Animal Communicator need to have one near-by for 2 adult companion cats?
Wouldn’t negotiating with telepathy either settle behaviour problems, or be resolved via connecting what the cat is mirroring back?
What am I not getting here?
Thnks, Hellen
Hi, Hellen,
Good question!
Melissa may look like an adult, but she’s still under a year old. She’s been with me less than 6 months, and she’s the strongest-minded cat I’ve ever met.
Melissa insists on having her own way on everything, no exceptions. She rarely speaks to me telepathically, despite my best efforts, and even more rarely does she listen or do as I ask.
Some of this may be teenage attitude, but some is also dominant female cattitude. I’ll be writing more about her in some later posts, so please stay tuned for those to learn more about her personality. She’s very unusual in some fascinating ways and has brought me some new challenges.
Melissa was “trained” to respect a spray bottle at the cattery where she was born. When she first came, I didn’t want use it, but soon had to resort to it in moments of desperation. Sometimes I just have to expedite matters, both for safety and sanity reasons.
I love Melissa very much and enjoy the challenges she presents to me. I feel we’re all doing the best we can for now.
As for Starlight, who is more than 3 years old, I don’t use the spray bottle with her and never really have. Since Starlight is the reincarnation of my horse, Echo, we’ve known each other for a very long time. We had a history to build on, and she very quickly learned what was or wasn’t acceptable. Starlight communicate easily and listens, so spray bottles are unnecessary.
Hi Nedda,
How interesting, since I also have a young male cat, who was extremely wild and aggressive as a kitten, and is still very head-strong and stubborn. I was unable to connect with him as a kitten except for one night, he had not responded for 2 weeks to any names I gave him, and he told me; “My name is Osiris and I am a force to be reckoned with!” Next day, he came running to this name. I tried FET remedies to no avail, this was a kitten for whom playing wildly for even 30 minutes straight in the hot summer while he was panting was not enough. I thought he had bi-polar disorder – either calm and laid-back or a ferocious ninja-figher.
I had not been sure about adopting him as I had very little time to decide and only one meeting where he was distracted with his siblings – but I had this bag of sample perfumes and while contemplating about this uncertainty, I decided to try one of the tiny samples, and the name of it was “The One.”
I was desperate to find a solution – my other older cat never accepted him – and soon he would be a biting, aggressive big cat, there was something off about him energetically and I just couldn’t pin-point it. In one month he tripled in weight and size, so it was getting dangerous for all of us.
After 2 readings, one Animal Communicator just suggested Alaskan remedies and bringing in another kitten for him to play with, and got chills when I suggested Osiris may have an energy attachment, and advised me to douse with Sage.( Not a huge help)
The 2nd reading with Karen Nowak, (she is one of your students and recommended you to me as a trainer) was right-on. He had a spirit attachment – an angry twin brother who was crushed to death very early on, and he was upset his brother had never even been given an name.
I actually was able to verify with the SPCA that he did indeed have a deceased brother.
Osiris and I gave him a name. By watching closely I was able to see him twitch whenever the brother came into his body. That was when the over-the-top aggressive behaviour would start, and I had to teach Osiris not to allow entities to enter his body. At times I needed to scream ‘Get the Fuck out’ as the brother-in-spirit was not wanting to return to the Light and was staying in this in-between-realm.
As a result, I ended up being proficient in making my own recipes with Alaskan remedies. It would not have been possible without them – especially with grove-wort for improper weaning; the changes over 3 months were miraculous. And I ended up successfully treating a friend’s cat for over-licking his belly as well.
After being with us for 3 months at 6 months of age, Osiris finally began to act like a cat, he rubbed against my legs for the first time – and more.
I am sure he would have been put down, or thrown out the window in frustration with anyone else. This is a kitten who would jump onto my back claws out at 4 months and 8 llbs while I was at the computer, and dig in with teeth whenever approached or even caressed. I thought this must be an autistic cat or ADHD like the new children coming in.
So, I understand and empathize with you 100% about having a challenging cat, and look forward to hearing more.
I feel now that ONE of the many reasons Osiris is with us, is to distract me from being overly attached to Ascension symptoms. And to move more gracefully with the new discordant energies. I am also used to cats who have been with me in other life-times in which the connections were palpable and profound.
I need to be open to Connect to the New now….and much more.
Thanks for sharing!
I began to realize when I needed several readings to get at the “truth” when I was too emotional….that just because we can “tune in” to an animal, doesn’t mean they will automatically want to “talk to us.”
Dear Hellen,
Thanks for sharing your inspiring story. Osiris is very lucky to have found you, and you were clearly meant to be his person.
Melissa and I have been working on many things together, and she is coming along nicely, but not yet settled down. I will blog more about her in due time, but I will say here that getting her name correctly was very important. She, as Osiris, wouldn’t speak to me at all until I realized her name was Melissa. Then she said, “Well it’s about time you figured that out.” Might have been faster had she just told me her name, but no, I had to discover it another way.
These amazing animal teachers are great challenges and great blessings all rolled up into one.
Yes, how true….lol…:-) Great & Magnificent teachers.