If you give a mouse a cookie

My kids have a pet mouse.  Her name is Mousy.  Original, huh?  We have had her for almost a year now, and she really is a great amount of fun.  She is clever, and the kids love to watch her.

She also has several lives.  Her first one bit the dust when one of the kids left her out of her cage.  It took 24 hours to find her.  The kids and I were frantic; the kids because they love her, and me, because the cat also loves her.  We found her in the lego drawer. She could not have climbed in there herself, and not one child would fess up.

Her second life bit the dust when she contracted some kind of mouse flu.  She was cold and lifeless in her cage, and the kids begged me to save her.  I placed her on a towel, and wrapped in in a heating pad set to low.  I then placed her in a box on the desk in the kitchen.  She revived, but I didn’t find her until after she peed and chewed up the heating pad.  I did not realize about the pee until I fired the heating pad back up a few weeks later.  I can tell you that heated mouse pee stinks like there is no tomorrow.

Her current malady is some kind of mouse neurosis.  She is scratching herself raw.  As in, no fur and bleeding.  Ick.  I have changed the bedding and she still scratches.  The kids are very upset, and asked me to take her to the vet.  A mouse.  To the vet. 

I asked the vets wife (at body torture exercise class) if Dr. Dan saw mice.  "Um, no, we don’t see mice.  We only do large animals….such as cows, horses, pigs, cats and dogs. Dan does not do mice" But she did refer me to a vet……45 miles away…..who does exotic animals.  When a mouse got exotic, I will never know.   I called the mouse vet, and he told me to put some antibacterial ointment on her boo boos, put shredded newspaper in her cage instead of the pine shavings, and bring her in Friday afternoon.

My husband just stared at me when I told him I was taking the mouse on a long trip to the vet.  "The mouse?" he said.  "Yes, the mouse.  They love her, and don’t want her to hurt.  If the vet thinks it is not possible to help her, I will have her put to sleep".  "Jody, it is a MOUSE.  That’s ridiculous." 

The thing is…my kids love her.  I have to do something. She is our pet.  I like her too.  She is part of our family.  Okay, maybe not part of the family.  But I can’t let her die. 

So, off we go tomorrow afternoon to take the mouse to the vet.  Yes you heard me.  It will probably cost a fortune.  Add to that the cost of the heating pad, and well, we have a very special mouse. 

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the vet bill.