I am your cat. I bring to you an offering I've caught.

[brantgoose]

*Originally posted by Rosebud *
**I didn’t know there were pheasants in the woods by my parents’ house until Momma Cat left a dead one on the doorstep. First and only one I’ve ever seen up close, too! Not mangled or anything, just neatly killed and waiting, I can only assume, for an honorable presentation at dinner. Momma Cat was very proud of herself.

**

Our family had a cat named Tiger (my brother swore she was a Tom when he brought her home) who was an excellent hunter. She once brought home a partridge (as we call the Ruffed Grouse in our neck of the woods). My mother would release any living birds, mice, etc., that the cat brought her.

Cats instinctively bring home game, live and dead, to their kittens, in order to teach them what, and how, to hunt and kill. Presumably they regard their “humans” as big dumb kittens that could use a few lessons in survivalism, even if they do know how to operate the can-opener and the can reach the handle to the fridge.

Cats are often regarded as cruel because they “play” with their prey, but again, this is educational–practice, practice, practice. Besides, cats kill by biting their prey on the neck. Who wants to stick their face into a seething ball of rat teeth and claws? The logical way to kill a small ball of fury with your teeth is to bat it around until it tires out or is stunned into submission, then go in for a quick kill.

I read somewhere that what a cat hunts is at least partly genetic–some cats are born birders, others are born mousers, some have had the hunting instinct bred out of them. Inquire of the hunting skills of a kitten’s mother (and father, if known) before you acquire a cat, and it may save you much grief.

Personally, I would like to have a cat with the savoir-faire, savoir vivre of Puss-in-Boots, who not only hunted with taste and discrimination, but knew how to handle Kings and Ogres. To Hell with pinecones, Puss, bring me Chateaux in the Loire Valley!

[porkchop_d_clown]

1. We have a cat, “Thomas” who was born in my sister’s barn. Unfortunately for Tom’s family, my sister’s dogs frightened off mom (who was a stray) so my sister had to find homes for all the kittens.

2. I have a very deep voice and often play “monster” with the children where I drop my voice into low gear and bellow/snort/roar and chase them around the living room.

Anyway, Tom was always skittish of me and it got much worse after the time he was seriously sick and I was official pill giver (I wouldn’t be fond of anyone who put me in a head lock and dropped things down my throat either, but there you go). So, Tom is now especially skittish of me - jumps up and watches me when I enter a room - keeps a good 6’ from me at all times, etc, especially if I’m being quiet and/or making “good kitty” noises. But he’s not afraid of me if I’m running around bellowing in a deep voice and saying things like “Cat Tasty! Yum! Yum!” That’s when he stops in his tracks, meows at me and waits for me to scratch his neck.

Sure freaks out the neighbors!

[TroubleAgain]

*Originally posted by Sunspace *
**Well, that explains the trouble with Toronto’s Major League baseball team, at least… **

Bwaa-hahaha

[Tir_Tinuviel]

Well, since I have been on Corpse Clearing Strike, my garden has been a regular little “Zed and Two Naughts”… very interesting…

hmmm…

[Ferrous]

Originally posted by brantgoose *
**
Cats are often regarded as cruel because they “play” with their prey, but again, this is educational–practice, practice, practice. Besides, cats kill by biting their prey on the neck. Who wants to stick their face into a seething ball of rat teeth and claws? The logical way to kill a small ball of fury with your teeth is to bat it around until it tires out or is stunned into submission, then go in for a quick kill.*

I saw a show about cheetahs that sort of adressed this. Baby cheetahs have an inborn hunting instinct, but not an inborn ability to kill an animal. They chase naturally, but the cheetah kill method of trip/bite neck/hold on until dead has to be taught by the mother. Cheetah cubs raised by humans who never had this training will never be able to survive in the wild.

I imagine this is true for many domestic cats as well. I think the so-called cruelty is just due to confusion. Some cats chase small animals, but then don’t know what to do with them when they catch them. They don’t know how to finish them off quickly, so they just bat them around for a while.

[Morbo]

I read somewhere that what a cat hunts is at least partly genetic–some cats are born birders, others are born mousers, some have had the hunting instinct bred out of them. Inquire of the hunting skills of a kitten’s mother (and father, if known) before you acquire a cat, and it may save you much grief.

Get a Ragdoll, like my sister-in-law’s cat. Utterly, totally defenseless. Has no killer instinct whatsoever. Will allow you to pick her up, roll her over, plant your face in her belly, you name it. Place a live mouse dunked in catnip in front of her, and you’ll maybe get a twitch of the tail. If that thing ever gets outside, she’s history. A gerbil could tear her to shreds. But, she is hands down the nicest and cuddliest cat you will ever see.

One fun thing to do with her - at XMas I always put little antlers on her, hold the back legs together in my left hand and the front legs together in my right, then open and close the legs to simulate reindeer flight while singing Jingle Bells.

[Warnas]

My cat Worf, who is just about one year old now, is a very friendly and trusting cat. However, he is still very playful.

My goldfish, who has survived three other goldfish in the space of two years and who misses one eye (apparently sometimes their eyes get infected and pop - yuck) has been living on my desk for as long as Worf has been around. His tank is not a typical goldfish bowl, but a glass column of about 40 cm high.

Worf has had dozens of opportunities to catch the goldfish in my absence, but still hasn’t. He’s even sipped from the water whilst the fish was near the surface, bobbing for air. Also, his method of telling me he’s thirsty is this: he leans over the fishtank and PRETENDS to drink the water. He knows I’ll notice that (because obviously I still don’t trust him with the fish - he may yet figure it out) and he also knows he’ll get yelled at. But then again, I always refill his waterbowl (he has two: one near his foodbowl which he never uses and one in my office) when he does this, so this is just his way of telling me to serve him a drink. Yes, my cat is a MIME.

Slightly incoherent story, this one, but there ya go.

[TheOnlySaneOne]

sighs I know that this is probably going to totally embarass my cat, “Ink”, but…he’s scared of mice. Yes, my cat is afraid of mice. We once caught a mouse in a trap. The mouse was still alive and kicking. We showed it to him, hoping he’d finish it off. He bolted. Not very pretty.

[MisterThyristor]

*Originally posted by Persephone *
**

Years ago, my first husband and I had this cat who once brought us the back end–JUST the back end–of a mole. Bleargh!

**

He heard you were out of syrup and thought you might like some mole-asses instead?

(I can’t believe no one else beat me to this one.)

[Catmarie]

My six month Kitten has decided that my spiderplant is a good target for killing. At first he was just batting the leaves and chewing on them a little but lately he has been pulling a baby plant off the main one and killing that by pouncing and chewing! I see him sneaking out of the room witht the spiderplantlet in his mouth to go and find a different place to kill it, cause I obviously won’t realise that it came from my plant!

Pest.

[CalMeacham]

One time Midnight caught a HUGE moth – not your typical house moth, but a big, fat colorful one, like a Cecropia. She was so proud it was hilarious. She kept picking it up and parading it in front of our other cat, Maggie. She was very clearly saying “I have a moth, and you don’t!”

After enough of this, she lay down with it between her paws and ate the whole thing, except for one of the smaller underwings that clung to her lower jaw like an oversized crumb.

[Tansu]

As you may know, people do not own cats. Cats own people. The people purchase transactions are conducted within the Mysterious Invisible Cat Economy. As you look after the cat and pet him/her, your worth in the Mysterious Invisible Cat Economy increases. The “gifts” you recieve are in fact your profit dividend as employee shareholder.

Next door’s cats have begun investing in me. I found two dead shrews in the garden in the last couple of days.

[ForbiddenFruitsalad]

We used to have a cat when I was smaller, but being an indoor cat it did not get many hunting opportunities. There was one incident, however… The cat was sitting on a windowsill in a room on the second floor, watching some birds in the apple trees outside. A window catch kept the window just barely open - an inch or two, enough to let fresh air in and possibly a paw out (but certainly not a full-grown cat).

No one else was inside that particular room, so we have no idea what actually happened, but after a while the cat emerged from the room with a small bird in his mouth! The bird was just small enough that it could have been squeezed through the window opening, but it couldn’t have flown in.

Terrified but otherwise unharmed, the bird was promptly returned to its natural habitat. My best guess is that it crashed into the window and that the cat somehow managed to drag the bird in while it was unconscious, but even that would require a pretty improbable sequence of events.

[Tansu]

One of my childhood memories is “The day Nelson brought the seagull home”. Nelson was a young, strong cat, and the seagull was a small one, as seagulls go, but still…

Nelson was also in the habit of bringing little bunnies home. If they were still in good shape, as they mainly were, my Dad used to take them back to the school playing field, where they came from.

[Typo_Negative]

*Originally posted by Tansu *
**As you may know, people do not own cats. Cats own people. The people purchase transactions are conducted within the Mysterious Invisible Cat Economy. As you look after the cat and pet him/her, your worth in the Mysterious Invisible Cat Economy increases. The “gifts” you recieve are in fact your profit dividend as employee shareholder.

Next door’s cats have begun investing in me. I found two dead shrews in the garden in the last couple of days. **

They also own the property.
It’s documented!