Charlie made his first kill last week! Eli had spent the night inside with us, and around 4am, I felt him jump up onto the bed where Charlie and I were asleep. I instantly knew something was not OK, flicked on the light, and saw that Eli had a live mouse ON THE BED, to play with for a while before he ate it up.

I screamed at Eli to take the mouse off the bed, but he doesn’t obey as well as Charlie does. The mouse was running circles on the bedspread on my chest, I was freaking out – I become a complete cliche when it comes to mice – and Charlie was standing on the bed grinning and wagging his tail, thrilled about all the excitement.

I snapped the covers back and sent the cat and mouse flying, and Charlie leapt off the bed after them. He and Eli ran to a corner where I suspect the mouse had hid in a crack, and moments later, Charlie emerged with the mouse in his mouth. He dropped the mouse onto the floor and, unlike the little feline, had killed it instantly. But Charlie acted like he wanted to hide the dead mouse somewhere in the cabin so I managed to get the mouse away from him with a deer antler, sent Charlie and the cat outside, and flung the dead mouse out the door after them.