A Mouse with Stockholm Syndrome (A Photo Essay)

Last week I wrote about some kittens who came in from the cold, so it seems appropriate this week to write about a mouse escaping the chilly outside temperatures. He (I’m using a male pronoun here, but honestly, I don’t know this rodent’s gender) wandered into our basement as the outside temperatures plummeted and found himself caught in one of our humane traps.

A mouse defying gravity inside of a plastic live trap.

So bright and early I took him on a short drive to our favorite mouse-dumping spot. (AKA the nearby trailhead.)

I pulled off the little plastic door and tilted the open end of the trap toward the ground, first at a slight angle, and then at an ever steepening angle when the mouse seemed to not realize that freedom was in his grasp.

A ridiculously cute mouse still defying gravity inside of a plastic live trap.

This mouse did not want to leave his safe little plastic prison. He had spent the night gorging himself on peanut butter, and couldn’t see any reason to leave the confines of the trap. He clung onto that thing for dear life as I tried to gently shake him loose.

At one point he shoved a little white paw through one of the air holes to make sure he could not be dislodged.

Photo of a mouse in a live trap with his paw sticking out through one of the air holes.

Meanwhile I wished I had worn a warmer coat. Also gloves. Why didn’t I put on gloves before leaving the house? Oh, I don’t know maybe because every other mouse I had released took mere seconds to set free.

I set the trap down on the ground and waited, but my little home invader was determined to stay as far away from that open door as he possibly could. Maybe he needed some enticement. I scrounged around in my car and located an ancient packet of crackers. I crumbled up the stale snack making a trail that led from the opening out into the field beyond, then I placed a single cracker crumb just inside the trap.

I waited, but the mouse stayed planted at the closed off end of the trap. Maybe he could sense me watching. I should go back into the car. I should crank the heat up so that I could feel my fingers again.

I sat in the warmish car for a few minutes. When I went back out I hoped to find an empty trap, but the mouse was still inside, but wait, what was this? The mouse was eating. He had grabbed the cracker crumb I left at the other end of the trap and brought it back to the closed off end of the trap to eat it. Look, this was already a mouse who had proven his downfall was food, so I wasn’t surprised.

Once he’d had a taste of stale cracker delight, would he be tempted by the sweet aroma of cracker crumbs that lay just outside his little abode? I waited. Then it happened, he poked his head out of the trap and his little nose picked up the scent of expired Ritz on the morning breeze.

Photo of a plastic live mouse trap outside on the ground surrounded by fallen leaves with a mouse sticking its head out the open door way.

Go for it! He hesitated in that little doorway. Behind him lay the dry (well, not counting the mouse pee) world of the protected trap and before him lay the big scary world. But also cracker crumbs. Lots and lots of cracker crumbs.