One of my 10 month old kittens, brought her first mouse home this morning! I heard her mieowing in the kitchen, so went to investigate - expecting to see our old friend Mr Frog (Mr Frog has been brought home several time already). En route to the kitchen, the aforementioned kitty dashes past me with something in her mouth and drops it at the foot of the the curtains in the lounge. Our newest house guest then proceeds (fairly sensibly in my opinion) to climb the curtain, away from the immediate danger of salivating feline jaws (by this time sister kitty has woken and come to see what all the fuss is about). Of course, it is then left to me to catch the poor little blighter and remove him. Here, I'm left with the small dilemma of whether to throw our 'Daniel' back into the proverbial lion's den, or to show mercy and transport him to relative safety in the garden! I switch, briefly, between memory recall of some quote from the cat encyclopeadia, discussing the con's of depriving animals of their prey, and a visual inspection of my new rodent companion...

...It's at this moment that the mouse blinks at me! Such a small, involuntary (or was it?) reflex but it is loaded with so much humanity, I'm left with no doubt of what my course of action must be. No longer is this tiny mouse just another rodent prey - no! Suddenly he has become Mr Tiny-Mouse, my friend.

I'm such a fake!