Over the course of the last month or so, I’ve been receiving fairly regular offerings of decapitated birds on my back patio from my neighbor’s cat. Now I’m flattered by kitty’s attention and I can easily see how one could mistake me for some sort of generic deity of predators and adorably fuzzy killing machines, but I must admit shoveling bird corpses into trash bags gets a little bit less fun every time you do it.
I do wonder why this cat has chosen me to favor with his leftovers. I’ve given this cat a friendly scratch behind the ears maybe twice in its life, and if I’m on my patio and the cat’s out it doesn’t seem to pay much attention to me at all. Any theories on this very mundane pointless occurrence?
The cat thinks you’re a poor hunter and is trying to help. That’s one idea. Another. is the offerings are not for you, but something or someone else who nomally is in or around your back patio.
I’ll go with Reepicheep’s first answer–congratulations, you are now a cat-in-training.
The next step in the program involves the cat bringing you crippled mice so that you can learn how to dispatch them. Eventually, you’ll work your way up to wood-rats and small o’possums.
This made me laugh. The thought did occur to me that maybe it’s not the cat, maybe I’ve got some sort of ineffectual nemesis out there who’s so pathetic I don’t even know he exists.
The teaching me to hunt angle does seem a bit more plausible. The only thing I’m really interested is that out of all the patios and all the neighbors why it decided to take me under its wing. I’m wondering what aspect makes me particularly kittenish.
I agree with what others have said, this seems to be fairly normal cat behavior - teaching the young to hunt by bringing them dead (and later on, dying) prey. Usually it’d be your own cat doing this since it’ll be closer to you as opposed to some random neighborhood kitty deciding you need some learnin’ but I guess it’s taken a liking to you. Enjoy.
The way I’ve always read to deal with this is to pat the cat on the head so it knows it’s doing a good job and then quietly dispose of the corpses later. If you freak out or yell “Bad kitty” then it’ll just confuse the cat.
One of my cats touches himself fairly regularly and has a blanket he sexes up several times a week. I had a roommate who used to get very offended and yell at him, saying things like, “Have you no shame?” until I explained to her that he does not, in fact, have any shame. You can’t have shame if you are a cat. What was he supposed to do, go hide in the bathroom or something? The couch is comfy, therefore the couch is where he chose to love on himself for a while.
That is now added to my list of mottoes to translate into various pretentious languages for handy use. “No Underpants, No Shame”.
The funny thing is that while cats for sure don’t have shame, they do have a sense of dignity. I once saw my cat leap off a small stool so suddenly he kicked it over while taking off, which also lost him enough of his forward momentum that instead of landing on the couch (his intended target). He made it about 3/4 of the way there and very nearly clocked his head on the couch’s armrest. It was the only time I’ve ever seen a cat NOT land on its feet: he went down scrambling for purchase on the couch or maybe the footstool he just left (and not grabbing anything), and finally landed on the floor on his side.
He immediately sat up and looked around, as if to see if anybody had noticed. Well I had, and I laughed my fool head off. In response, he calmly sat there and licked his paws for a bit, then trotted off in no particular direction, in no particular hurry. As if to say, “I’m still cooler than you, and don’t you forget it.”
This reminds me of a time my brother’s dog was humping a large pillow. My mother yells “No, stop! You’ll go blind!”
I have definitely seen an embarrassed cat. My gf’s cat is in the habit of missing jumps from one piece of furniture to another as it is getting older. The first thing it does after wiping out is to promptly look around to see if anyone witnessed its moment of weakness.
They’re not offerings, or threats. Cat’s know that humans generally dislike encountering bits of dead animal - leaving them there for us is their way of saying ‘Fuck You!’
