Teeny, the youngest of three cats that live in the same house I do, has started bringing me birds each morning. He catches them in the yard, and then brings them in the cat door to share with the other cats. They have a grand old time (the cats not birds). He is a very skilled hunter. He actually caught and killed one of his archenemies, Evil Squire. He has a collar with a bell on it, but this has not worked. I think he is challenged by the bell and is using it as additional motivation.
We had an “outdoor” cat that resided in our garage when we lived in Colorado, and the list of things she brought to our garage doorstep included, but not limited to:
more than 30 mice
more than 15 rats
at least a dozen baby rabbits
3 fully grown rabbits
1 jackrabbit :eek:
15 or so lizards of random species
some unidentified rodent that resembled a mole, something that lived underground anyway
grasshoppers
and collectively over 6 cups of unidentifiable entrails
Needless to say we learned to be very careful when we stepped outside in the morning, and were sure to pet her lovingly and exclaim what a good girl and avid hunter she was. Then we picked up the ickiness with an inverted plastic bag and threw it all in the dumpster.
As a side note, on several occasions the “gifts” included various combinations of the aforementioned sacrifices.
And in case you’re wondering where a lone cat comes across all that stuff, we lived on a very isolated ranch, she had about 400 acres to explore and attack.
-foxy
I completely forgot about the birds. Add probably 20-30 of those in there too. I was so shocked that she took down a whole jackrabbit that I forgot about when she took to assasinating the skies…
I’ve had an outside cat off and on for nearly 20 years, and we’ve only had a couple murders. I think the other critters are afraid of my yard.
I had a cat once that did that sort of thing. He was a big black thing, utterly fearless
(except for the one time he got treed by a grey fox), and he had 16 acres of woodlands that my parents owned to play in.
His crowning moment of glory was when he somehow managed to bring home a six month old wild bobcat. I spent all my spare money that summer on vet bills for the broken leg, torn claw beds, scratches, bites, missing fur, etc. etc. etc. Stupid cat.
Was this for the bobcat or for your own cat?
What happened to the bobcat?
See now, my indoor cats bring me much nicer things. Besides their toys, they’ve brought me ribbon, bubble wrap, a back scratcher, and a tube of hand lotion. The other day Boris tried to make off with a wrapped gift of Madden 2007 for PSP. Much nicer, I think, although I resent the implication that my hands aren’t soft enough to pet them.
When I was little, a stray cat adopted my family, and proceeded to ferociously protect our block from any and all wandering dogs that might happen by. That in itself was strange enough, but the truly amazing thing to see was how quickly the average dog will turn tail when attacked by an enraged medium-sized cat - not that I blame them; she fought dirty. When a neighbor’s German Shepherd got out of his yard, he suffered a severely damaged eye for the crime of not backing down from this maniacal furball.
Anyhow, when she went birding, she’d usually leave the dead on my mother’s pillow. Needless to say, her stay in our house was relatively brief. 
My cat once woke me up meowing loudly and excitly. In a daze I realized that she had a present for her mommy. As I woke up, I realized that the present was still alive! :eek: Turned out to be a chipmunk, which then escaped. It ran up me, ran down me, Spinnker in hot pursuit. It finally hid in the cubbies, under my windowseat that I used to store my clothes. Spin wandered away, and the chipmunk jumped out of my second story window.
Spin is the Queen of mousing. I can still remember as a kitten, her stealing a package of deli sliced cheese.
Peepers as a kitten used to steal socks.
Ophelia brings me wasps and bees, I’m surprised she hasn’t had her mouth stung yet but they’re definitely still alive when she drops them in front of me. Her partner in crime, who passed away a couple of months ago, used to bring me butterflies.
Our cats were great hunters. They used to bring adult rabbits in. They’d leave them dead on the kitchen floor (lino), then lick the nose and start eating them head first.
Given the damage that the various prey animals did to the garden, we had no problems with the cats hunting.
But they couldn’t deal with the deer. The stags were over 5 foot tall without antlers.
You need a bigger catflap.
un-lurking as i have to say that my old cat (named cecil in honour of the master) was somewhat inspired in his choice of presents.
picture the scene… just having a restful bath after pulling down a sixteen hour shift when cecil jumps on the side of the bath with something in his mouth, something WRIGGLING… which he promptly drops into the bathwater…
…
…
…
wait for brain to kick in…
…
…
that wriggling thing?.. was a live frog…
very hasty exit from bath…
(not Stopping for towel… must get something to catch frog…)
dash through living room on way to kitchen thinking “saucepan… need saucepan…”
barely notice figure in black dress…
standing in kitchen stark naked realise have just dashed past wifes sister…
now what do i do?..
and don’t get me started on the time he brought home a whole roast chicken…
The last cat I lived with brought back a few rats for her daddy. One of the renters let her in, and discovered she was carrying a live rat. It ran into the couch, and was uncatchable. We had to lock the cat in the house, and when the rat finally made its move at about 4am, she killed and ate most of it.
The fuzzy black landshark who lives in my house will very rarely bring in gifts from outside, but when he does, they are almost invariably alive. It’s rather distressing, I must say, to come home from work and find feathers in the bedroom and bird shit on the duvet, and to know that the next hour will be spent scouring the house for the cowering sparrow.
My cat brought home mice when we were living across the road from a reserve several times and I double belled her after this incident;
A bit of background; my room was on the bottom level of the house, which wasn’t the street entrance - the property sloped and I was underneath the street level as it were, with access to the back yard. My cat had often brought me myna birds which was fine because they’re a damn pest.
I came home from school, wandered through my doorway, put something on the bookshelf next to the door and turned around. My rug was coated in bright green feathers and there was some sort of green parrot (I don’t know what it was, I do remember that it didn’t have the curved parrot beak), splayed like a sacrifice. I screamed at the top of my lungs before recruiting my brother to help clean it up.
I’ve also had to pick up regurgitated mouse pelt. Just the pelt, covered in saliva picked up in a paper towel while still warm.
Zeriel - I’m dying to know if the treatment was for the bobcat or your cat!
One of my indoor cats loved to fetch underwear and sweaters from the bedroom to the kitchen of my apartment. Her crowning achievement was to drag a crocheted afghan off the bed, through the living room, and up to the table where I sat, stunned speechless.
My sister told me the funniest present story (for everyone but her). She woke up one morning to see her cat standing on her chest with a mouse in her mouth. My sister, who is terrified of mice, lets out a scream. This, of course, startles her cat which drops the mouse. The mouse, now free and very much alive, tears off to the nearest hiding place - right under my sister’s covers. It was at this point my dad woke up to screaming and he went into my sister’s room to see her doing the “holy shit it’s a mouse” dance while screaming. I wish I could’ve been there.
My cats were originally obtained to remove some mice from my house. They seem to have succeeded at that. So now they catch mice out in the yard, and bring them (alive) into the house, where they sit on opposite sides under the dining room table, and chase the mouse back and forth across the carpet.
If I am upstairs in the office, working on the computer when they catch a mouse, they carry it inside, up the stairs, into the office, and drop it (still alive) under my chair to show me what they’ve caught. They meow proudly all the way up to the office. I’ve begun to recognize a certain meow; I now can tell when they are bringing me a ‘gift’.
But I do object to the times where they manage to lose a mouse, like when it runs under the stove or refrigerator or somewhere they can’t go. Then they come to me, and meow piteously, like I’m supposed to do something about it. Dang it, they are the mouse-catching experts, not me!
Your cat isn’t bringing you presents, people. Your cat is telling you that you’re pathetic. Apparently, you STILL haven’t figured out how to hunt.
She’ll bring you dead ones, hoping that you’ll at least play with it, but no-- all you do is grimace and put it in the garbage. If you’d start batting it around a bit, she’d move on to bringing you half-dead critters that you can kill yourself. At this point, she’s probably starting to think you’re a little “slow.”
You guys would be really grateful for those skills if there was some sort of apocalypse.