If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that a week and a half ago, Soleil hurt her back leg, and she's slowly healing up. The vet indicated 2 weeks of rest and reduced activity. To this end, we blocked off access to upstairs with a baby gate and we took the couch out onto the porch, so that there was no furniture to climb up on.

I have been sleeping in the largely empty living room, making camp on the floor with the dogs for the past 10 nights. 

At least three times (that I'm aware of), we've been treated to 3:30 am cat and mouse confrontations in and around the liquor cabinet, an old wood dry sink, about a metre across the floor from where I am sleeping. So far, the mouse has lived to see another day.

Last night was the most recent skirmish in the ongoing war. I awoke to loud noises; turning on the light, I discovered that the cat had found her way into the liquor cabinet and was rooting around in there for her prey. Both came darting out with great alacrity. I sprang across the room in the other direction, equally fast.

The mouse dashed across the rug and took refuge in the quilt under which, minutes ago, I had been blissfully asleep. 

Stripes waited for the mouse.

I waited for Stripes.

Eventually (ok, almost immediately) the fact that the mouse was in my quilt got the better of me, and I grabbed an edge and shook it, sending the mouse on the lam again, with Stripes hot on its heels. 

She caught it in her mouth and went and sat on my pillow with it.

I said ''I really don't want it'' in a not very grateful tone.

She dropped it and off they went again, straight at us, past us, and into the kitchen.

We followed.

The Labradors watched every move like spectators at a tennis match; fascinated yet frightened, much as I was.

The mouse found a temporary redoubt behind an alligator dog toy and one of my mocassins, under the lower lip of the kitchen cabinets.

Meticulously, in a very serial-killer way, Stripes reached out a paw and peeled back the alligator, then did the same for the mocassin. 

The battle-scarred rodent made one last dash for escape, down the cellar stairs.

Stripes disappeared into the blackness behind it.

I shut the door behind them both, and let them get on with it.

You'd never imagine the noise that an 8lb cat and a tiny mouse can make.

I don't know how it all ended, but silence fell at some point.

I still haven't mustered the courage to go into the cellar and look for the corpse.  And I don't know what will be worse: finding one or not finding one.