Here Lies......

I know cats are cats and that they eat mice. Fine. However, I have a problem when they inflict fear and pain just to amuse themselves. I saw my cat carrying a mouse home. He dropped it and then began to swat it back and forth. I waited a minute to make sure he wasn't going to kill it quickly and when he didn't, I went to inspect the poor thing to find out if it was badly injured or not. It was. It had been paralyzed in the hind legs and was dragging them behind itself as it tried to run away. The poor mouse just wanted to live and to get out of a frightening situation. I tried to call my other cat over, hoping he might be more interested in a quick kill, but he had just eaten. I knew I had to put the poor thing out of its misery, but I just HATE doing it. I would rather give myself a shot in the arm or even have a root canal. Seriously, it makes me SO sad to have to kill anything. I can't even kill a spider and I've cried over accidentally killing a bug more than once. Knowing what I had to do, I found a shovel and had the little mouse climb on board as I took it over to the gravel road. The worst part of the process for me is the death march. Here this mouse is staring up at you, hoping you are doing something nice for it and all along you know what is around the bend. Ugh!! I put the mouse down and I hit it over the head and.. it didn't work. Thinking that this was totally not how it should go, I repeated step one. I've never botched up an execution quite like this. I had to hit this creature SO many times and I was so sick to my stomach I almost threw up. I am the worlds worst executioner!! I've killed mice before and have never had this problem. This poor thing probably had the worst headache before it finally died. After I was sure the mouse was no longer breathing or blinking, I dug a hole and laid it to rest. I cried like a baby and I think my neighbors thought I had lost it. It's not the first time I've wailed over having to kill a mouse, but it's definitely the WORST I've ever felt about it. I really need to get my hands on some euthanasia. Maybe next time, I'll just take the mouse to the vet and ask him to put it to sleep.