When we bought our fixer upper house last summer, we decided that once we were settled in we would get at least one cat. But not just any cat. An outdoor mouser. You see, we have a bit of a mouse problem at our house.
I should clarify that and say we have a pretty big mouse problem. Luckily in the two months my husband worked on remodeling our house before we moved in, he sealed up a lot of the holes and little gaps that the mice could get in. But we see them and evidence of them around the exterior of the house, in the barns and the garage.
We have quite a few burly mouse traps set up around the property and that has helped a little, but we ultimately knew we wanted to get a cat. Little A has wanted a “kitty” for a while and we promised her that we would get her one soon. I grew up in an old farmhouse and we always had outdoor barn cats for pets so I wanted Little A to also experience having a pet cat. A kitty is a little more her size anyway compared to our two big dogs!
My husband checks the free ads on Craigslist everyday and yesterday it paid off. He told me the perfect cat was listed for free: An outdoor 8 month old cat who was spayed, up to date on her shots and a really good mouser. My husband went and picked her up and brought her home.
We decided that until she got to know us and wouldn’t run off, we would keep her in the heated shop. We set up a little bed, food and water dishes, and a cardboard box with cat litter in it. She was a little skittish around us for the first few minutes but then came a little closer and let my husband pet her.
Today Little A and I visited her several times and she let us pet her. She purred and purred. I’ve been trying to teach Little A not to chase her and frighten the kitty. Amazingly our new kitty isn’t too spooked since she came from a family that had younger children. She has the sweetest personality and some really unique coloring. Little A loves her new kitty!
We plan to keep her in the shop another day or two and then take her outside with us. My husband actually bought a cat door to install in the shop so our kitty can sleep in there to stay warm during our cold Montana winters. Hopefully she’ll bond enough with us over the next few days that she’ll stick around. Now we just need to come up with a name for our new kitty!
What a cute kitty! Hope she does her job and tracks down all the mice 🙂
Yes, we VERY hopeful she will start to make a dent in our mouse population!
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