Yes, Kitty, you're powerful fierce, now quit it!

Don’t count on that. When I was a kid, we put a bell on the cat, but he learned to move in such a way that it didn’t ring. He still caught birds, although maybe not as many as before.

Well, it’s kinda heartwarming to know that your cat means well, anyway… :wink:

But yeah, the only way to get her to stop is probably to:

  1. Declaw, and decalwed cats have to become indoor cats since their defenses are gone;

  2. Let her outside, but in a yard with really tall fences, or;

  3. Get her a harness and take her for walks. Going for walks on a leash is rather un-catlike and could take some training. Good thing is that cat harnesses secure the shoulders as opposed to the neck, so kitty won’t get any you’re-trying-to -strangle-me panic. But it would be the best of both worlds; she could still go places while you keep her killing instincts in check.
    Good luck!

But beware if you choose this solution. I’ve heard that if the bell is too large, the cat will learn to walk without making it ring.

In my experience, declawing is fairly unusual in NZ and Australia. I personally would think it cruel but never really thought about it. We would never have thought of declawing our cats, not because we think it’s cruel, but because it just wouldn’t have entered our heads. It is unusual for cats here to be kept inside all the time, so maybe that is the difference between here and the US?

Aw! What a sweet story! Well, as sweet as any story involving ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ can be.

That would explain why my very sweet, very calm, very mild-mannered Emmy keeps bringing her toy furry mouse in the bed with us at night.

Ava

I just thought of something.

What if you started bringing your cat dead mice? Maybe she’d figure that you’ve learned, and stop trying to teach you.

On an unrelated note, back in the day we were taking care of my sister’s declawed cat, Maxwell. One night we saw Maxwell playing with something in a dark part of the living room. It looked kind of like the long-tailed toy mouse we had around for the kitty to play with, but Max had never really taken interest in it, so I decided to investigate. I turn on the light, and it wasn’t the long-tailed mouse Max was playing with, but a dead baby snake. My mom damn near freaked out when I told her. Still, not bad for a declawed cat.

my black cat banzai loves to hunt…I got tired of either waking up nose to little dead nose on my pillow, or waking up and swinging my legs over to hear the wet squish crunch as i stood up on a dead mouse that I trained him to take his little furry and feathered snacks and eat them in the bath tub…

My little white ball of fluff Jezebel on the other hand is a total wuss…but she adores the little yellow foamy earplugs. Never has eaten one, but she treats it just like prey, tossing it in the air and catching it, running around with it in her mouth…you can actually get her away from her food by calling out ‘earplug’ in a soft voice. Did I mention she also likes to play fetch with it…she wil come over with it, drop it at your feet and give a funny chirrupy noise and wait expectantly for you to throw it for her…and I have actually seen a mouse back her off by chittering agressively at her=\

The best story I have of my declawed cats were how they worked like a pack. The two were a mother daughter team from hell.

They used to use this strategy on birds. The mother would come out in front of say about three birds and crouch down tail twitching exactly like she was going to pounce. The birds would freeze watching her. The daughter would then come in from behind and WAM!

They’d catch about 4 birds a day like this and were very very fat when they died. I never knew cats were capable co-operating like that.

I thought of buying her a bell once, not for birdie defense but the sheer cuteness factor. I figured I’d be annoyed if a bell rang every time I moved, though, so why put her through that?

Yeah, I’m all up on over that now, dingle dangles here we come!

My cat is an indoor cat. I was toying with letting her out occasionally… until this thread.

My cat will remain an indoor cat. Thank you.

You’re most welcome!
See, I love when this happens, now I can rationalize my utterly wussy freakout last night by thinking to myself “Self, Sinshine benefitted from your experience!” That’s gotta be worth nearly as much as helping an old lady cross the street, right? :smiley:

You need one of these.
The photos on the last page are hysterical – yuck!

Both of my cats are declawed. Mom and I did everything we could to avoid it, but it was a)declaw or b) get rid of the cats because they were going to shred the furniture.

We tried everything. We sprayed them with water when we would see them start to claw the furniture. We had a scratching post which we sprinkled liberal amounts of catnip on. We used “shake cans” full of pennies to startle them. We even tried a spray called Boundary, which is supposed to repel cats from an area where they like to claw. Nothing worked.

We finally decided the claws had to go.

We found a really good vet to do the declawing. There is a procedure by which the claws are removed from their shaft without having to sever the tips of the toes. Schrodinger came through it with no problems. Conan kept chewing the stitches and finally chewed right through one. We took him back to the vet and left him for a couple of nights after getting re-stitched. After that, he was fine.

Both cats still have excellent paw dexterity. In fact, Conan once escaped from the apartment and managed to get back in by climbing the wooden framework of the balcony. With no front claws.

If you must declaw, do some vet shopping. There are good vets who can remove the claws and still leave the toes intact. And let them keep the hind claws- mom’s old cat Muffin, a Russian Blue Persian who weighed all of four pounds, once defended herself in a fight with a much larger cat using her hind claws.

Declawing is just not fair. If you have inside cats surely you can teach them that clawing the furniture is not a good thing. If you have outside cats then declawing is a horrible thing to do because it renders them almost helpless (like de-toothing a dog)

The dingle-dangle collar cured my boys of their bad habit. They went from at least a sparrow a week to none in over six months.

And yes it may be pure luck but no native birdies were delivered ever…only sparrows. I do acknowledge that in areas where native birds are at risk we should be more prudent.

My friend’s declawed cat had no trouble catching a little bunny AND MURDERING IT in front of of us.

Then the only purpose of declawing is to protect furniture?

In the UK, declawing is considered SO cruel that it is actually illegal. Do it and you can be prosecuted for, basically, animal torture. I think that it is absolutely barbaric.

As a further illustration of cultural differences, in the UK it is also generally considered cruel to keep cats indoors their whole lives. Certainly when I see my cat spending hours just sitting on the back fence watching the view or lying down in the long grass followed by extended leaping from leaf to leaf, I can’t imagine depriving her of the very experiences that seem to make her life worth living. It actually makes me sad to even imagine such a thing. But I’ve seen the arguments on the SD many times in the past and understand that others take a very, very different perspective on this.

pan

My two are happy, healthy, well-loved indoor cats. They’ve been outside only in cat carriers, or in the case of my boy, for 24 hours when he escaped and got lost for 24 hours - scared the hell out of me, but he never tried it again. They love looking out windows, and they love playing with their mom and dad - in fact, a good portion of the evening is spent playing with mom and dad. They’re happy.

When I was a child, I had seven outdoor cats from the time I was two until I was eighteen. Two are still alive, one was killed by a German shepard, one was stolen from our front yard as a kitten, one died of stomach cancer, one was hit by a car, and one who was sick wandered off into the woods to die without giving us the opportunity to bury him (that just happened five months ago). I will never allow another cat to be an outside cat again. I love them too much for that.

Ava

I love my cat too much to keep him indoors when his instinct makes him want to go outside and hunt. He’s an animal, I’m going to allow him to be one rather than make him my prisoner. (haha, ok, that’s extreme, but he likes to go outside and I like it when he poops out there :smiley: )

For those who advocate declawing or plan to declaw their cat, please check out this website:

http://www.softpaws.com/

These things are awesome!! I just got a new kitten, and he’s been wearing soft paws since I got him. It’s saved me a lot of pain and suffering at the hands of his claws. He doesn’t seem to mind them, and he has no trouble getting around/climbing, etc. Once he’s old enough not to scratch the hell out of me, I’ll probably stop using them. But for now, I am so glad I tried them out!

They’re kind of hard to apply, but if you get someone to hold the cat in a towel, it’s not so bad.