Yesterday evening just as it was getting dark, I was making one of my zillion trips a day thru the living room to my office. The living room is the cat’s room. The furniture is old, ugly and uncomfortable, but they don’t seem to mind. They don’t even seem to mind that the TV isn’t hooked up to the cable. I don’t turn the lights on in the living (cat’s) room because they’re sleeping most of the time anyway.
So, anyway, I’m walking by the coffee table and I see a dark something on the floor. They do have a coffee table with magazines, but I don’t think they read them. I’ve noticed that they’ll lay some of the magazines on the floor overnight, but it’s too dark to read, so I don’t know what they’re doing with them.
Ugaly, my tortoiseshell cat, was under the coffee table, kinda crouched down pointed in the direction of the something that I noticed on the floor. She might have been asleep for all I knew, it was pretty dark. I was thinking that it was one of their toys and that I’d probably step on it during one of my next zillion trips through the living/cat’s room. So I reach down to pick it up. … It was a mouse! Dead, of course.
If she caught it inside the house, that’s great, but I imagine she brought it in. See, if the cats are awake, they want go outside if they are inside or in if they’re out so it’s kinda automatic to just open the patio door each time I’m near it if the cats are around. I seldom take more than a glance so I don’t always catch her bringing her treasures in the house.
I wish she’d keep them outside, but I’m not going to discourage her. … If she’d do the same with the squirrels, I’d be really happy. … Not the bringing inside part, the other part.
Fortunately, my monster…sorry, cat, is an inside cat, otherwise, I just know that she’d be catching mice, squirrels, birds, you name it!
Really though, I read in a magazine/promo flyer for Iams Pet Food that cats aren’t just trying to gross you out when they catch another animal, they are trying to teach you.
The first two times, the cat will bring it to you dead. It is a present, as if to say “Look what I did for you.”
The third time, the cat will bring the mouse to you half dead, as if to say “I started, now you finish. Remember what I showed you last time?”
I have totally paraphrased the above, as I no longer have the magazine, and cannot find anything on the Iams website. So I might be way off here…it happens
Ugaly just likes to kill rats and mice. She plays with them to death. She seems to just bring them back to the house, and sometimes in the house, just to have a secure spot to finish her little game. That plus showing off her prize.
Once back in the summer she wanted to stay out over night and when I got up the next morning there were three rats laying in a nice little row just outside the patio door, all very dead.
I have several bird feeders so there are birds all over outside, but my cats don’t bother the birds. And unfortunately, they don’t go after the squirrels either, but Ugaly does like to catch rats and mice.
Every time my 18 year old neutered Tom named Clapton gets annoyed with me, or my elderly parents, or the weather (which I am obviously responsible for), the little bugger shits in my bathtub!
He’s too old to spank, & too old to learn. :smack:
Well ** Lord Jim **, Ugaly must really like you to try an impress you with her ability of hunting prowess…
Never could get my cats to stop. Just as well since it helps hone their skills for any indoor intruders. Rodent size of course. Anything larger they would run for cover.
Luckily as in indoor Delilah Underfoot (and she’s earned her last name) has only killed one little bitty bird and left it out for me to find.
Although this one time I did watch her run out onto the patio all slunk down low and then watch as she ran back in with these little wings flapping in her mouth. I chased her, caught her brought her back to the patio and forced her mouth open and the bird flew away safely. Just as well, she doesn’t eat any meat at all, only her Science Diet for seniors. She didn’t seem angry with me at all.
I’ve been a Cat server all my life. You don’t realize it but your cat is protecting you. Ugaly knows you (and all the rest of us) are pathetic little pansies. “EEEK! A Mouse!” they hear all to often. I once had a seven pound Siamese that was going to kill some cows for me to cook. I had to snatch her away because I was the " 'fraidy cat". She did the crouch so low you can’t be seen and sneek up on them thing. My (then) wife and I watched and were amazed. The cows looked down on her, they had the advantage of height, and it looked to me as if they saw a cute little critter. If they only knew.
Another time I woke up in bed and felt something cold by my feet. I moved it around and then became fully awake. I pulled the sheets back and my (now ex)wife got very upset. Until I found the mouse head. My cat Cecil I think is a “made Cat”. It was a hit and a warning just like in “The Godfather”. Thats how he got the nickname Vlad the Impaler. I’ve always done what he says exactly how he says, no questions. Badda bing, badda boom.
So. Don’t get any crazy ideas. They leave a body? You get rid of it. Make it clean an’ don’ talk to noboddy. Cappish?
Well, Jim, buddy, count yourself ever-so-lucky. My dearly departed cat, Mojo, once brought me a vole, and laid it right down next to my head IN THE BED. What a treat, opening an eye from sleep and seeing a little critter in it’s death throes, coughing and sputtering, eye-level, two inches away!
When I was about six, my dear old Tommy got a mouse out in the garden. I ran out and rescued said mouse. Dad built a cage for it out of an orange crate and some screening, Mom fed it bread and milk and Nanny took me out to buy a book on rodents. That poor little critter only lasted a week or two, but he started a trend…
I currently have around fifty mice, twelve rats and a whack of other critters, including of course, a cat. This one’s name is Boots. The head rat around here is Freddy. When Boo was a kitten, she stuck a paw in Freddy’s cage and promptly got it bitten. She is now afraid of rats. (sigh). This is the same Boo that at the age of six weeks walked up to our HUGE Rottie and whacked him across the nose! He now treats her with great respect. Go figure.
My cat Londo hunts leaves and brings his kills in for me to admire. Unfortunately, his brother G’Kar goes for more animated fare bringing in mice and the occasional bird. Lately, G’Kar has taken to just bringing in the mice and then watching them. I have rescued quite a few in the past year. I release them across the street in the neighbor’s yard where they will be safe. I hope my neighbor doesn’t mind.
My cats do that thing where they play with them a while then step back and just watch them. Sometimes even turn their back on the mouse to give it as much advantage as posible. … Cats do fight fair.
