It gets dumped into a nearby open space.  That’s right folks, this morning we captured mouse #2, this one had the will to live (and a penchant for cookies and peanut butter) and chose to become captured in the live trap as opposed to the kill and contain.

We do have Lava to thank for alerting us to this latest entrapment.  This morning I was downstairs and had just let Lava in from outside, while Noah was upstairs getting Logan dressed.  Lava did her usual routine of sniffing the floor, looking for any nibbles she could find.  She must have caught a whiff of the mouse as she started dancing around the trap.  She would strain and lean to sniff the box without actually having to get close to it.  I called up to Noah to relay Lava’s behavior, and as I was doing so, she started growling at the trap.  At that time, I went upstairs to finish dressing Logan so Noah could come down and investigate.  Lo and behold, there was a mouse in the trap!  Noah dumped him out in a nearby field, but not the one behind our house.  Perhaps he will become food for our neighborhood owl.  When Noah came back inside, Lava was rewarded with a milk bone.  Good doggy!

Noah mentioned later this morning that he thought he heard something in the kitchen last night that sounded like a mouse, but thought, nah, we caught him.  Ooops.  Noah he’s just going to be paranoid about noises coming from that room.  At least the food in our pantry is now protected by Rubbermaid.

So now, that’s two mice we’ve had in our kitchen.  I really hope that’s the end of them.  As soon as Noah has the opportunity he’s going to scour the outside of the house and the crawlspace to see if he can tell where the intruders are entering the house.  And then, with any luck, we can prevent any more from coming in (more likely trap the ones that are already in).