The worst thing about cats
Yesterday, just after Wife and I had watched Casanova, the cat-flap opened. Wife looked down to greet Cat, as we always do, and then shrieked, "What have you got there?!"
This usually scares the shite out of me, because it is often followed by Cat saying, "Oh, it's just a mouse," and as he does that he drops the cunting thing on the floor and it scuttles away under some piece of furniture or other.
On this occasion, though, it was a bird. He started to go upstairs. I gave him a stern "no", but he ignored me and ran upstairs and under our bed. I lifted the valence, or counterpane, or whatever the fuck it's called, to look under the bed, and there I found the bird. Dead as a dodo. I gently scooped him up into a small box. His neck was broken and he had blood around his beak. His little eyes were closed and his claws were clenched.
It was a beautiful bird, in death just as it had been in life. A life cut tragically short by our cat. I love Cat, and I love cats, but this is the price we have to pay for keeping these great hunters in our homes while allowing them the freedom to enjoy the outside world.
This usually scares the shite out of me, because it is often followed by Cat saying, "Oh, it's just a mouse," and as he does that he drops the cunting thing on the floor and it scuttles away under some piece of furniture or other.
On this occasion, though, it was a bird. He started to go upstairs. I gave him a stern "no", but he ignored me and ran upstairs and under our bed. I lifted the valence, or counterpane, or whatever the fuck it's called, to look under the bed, and there I found the bird. Dead as a dodo. I gently scooped him up into a small box. His neck was broken and he had blood around his beak. His little eyes were closed and his claws were clenched.
It was a beautiful bird, in death just as it had been in life. A life cut tragically short by our cat. I love Cat, and I love cats, but this is the price we have to pay for keeping these great hunters in our homes while allowing them the freedom to enjoy the outside world.
Labels: cat
permalink posted by * (asterisk) at 2:04 PM
10 Comments:
We have cats too, and no doubt they are violent little bastards. Last night when Tuffy picked me up at the airport, she told me that Shadow brought a bird home the other night. I don't know how many birds and rodents they kill when they go out on the town.
While I was away, I saw some tracks from a big cat on the banks of the Crowsnest River. I don't know if it was a bobcat or a linx or maybe even a mountain lion. Each track was close to the size of my fist, from some kind of cat for sure....just like the little ones but huge. Imagine the killing a big one does.
Well... I don't know that I "shrieked"...
I like to think that I boomed (I always remember what Jo Jo says: low tone for reprimanding; high pitch for rewarding).
Asterisk, I feel exactly the same. Our cat leaves his presents to us outside most of the time, thankfully.
He once brought a mouse in to the living room when were just getting a little action.
How do they always know when to interrupt?
Does he ever bring you rabbits? That's what my dad's cat does for him if my dad goes away for a few days. Drives my mom crazy. She just leaves them in a little pile until my dad returns.
Okay... gonna head over to Cat's blog to read HIS side of the story.
(any chance you could email the audio file to me? Pretty please? I really want to hear it.)
Iguanas get in my house...The old cat Crystal ( a fabulous huntress in her day),she'll attack it half heartedly, meowing nervously the whole time..
its sad in a funny way.
heh that's funny. I used to have a cat. He once brought a bird to the house, and ran under the bed when I followed him. He had been with us for 6 years, but as I reached to the bird he attacked my hand. It was the only time he had ever been aggressive towards me.
I used to like to play rough with him, he liked that. He always played with, attacked and retaliated but always in a playful manner. this time he meant business...
I had to play master though :( I gave him a nudge and took the bird... he didn't talk to me for 2 days.
It is an undeniable fact that cats are carnivores; their physiology demands this. However, the debate on cat predation focuses on the impact on the other species in their ecosystem. While it is clear that cats can and do have a large impact in exceptional situations (isolated ecosystems being the primary example), it is much more apparent that in our normal, everyday environments the actions of humans have a much greater effect on vulnerable and threatened species. Urban sprawl, fragmentation of forested ecosystems, the increase in motor vehicles and the related increase in roads, and the use of pesticides, fertilizers and poisons do much more damage to bird and small vertebrate species than do domestic and/or feral cats. However, feral cat predation, and its’ supposed effect on vulnerable species, is frequently used as an argument against trap/neuter/return (TNR) programs. As cats are opportunistic feeders, providing them with a readily available food source as a part of a TNR program will reduce any effect they have on their traditional prey species. All cats, and feral cats in particular, have become convenient scapegoats for the loss of many species, especially songbirds. However, we can no longer ignore the role that we humans have played in this process. Before we can sentence cats to death for being carnivores, we need to take a hard look at ourselves and what we have done to our ecosystem.
from...
http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/html/predation_studies_reviewed.html
ours once fetched a shrew in. it was screeching like a demented little thing. horrible, but thats nature for you.
Wow, well there's a mixed bag of comments, eh? In brief, then:
Mr A: They're great at what they do, huh...
Red: it was a shriek (ish).
Suze: ours interrupts everything, especially movies and dinner.
Fruning: Cats are clean and don't walk thru poo. And ours rarely goes on the counter either :-P
Camie: No rabbits... yet. Cat is sleepy today, but I think he's going to be blogging again soon.
Cynnie: We get slowworms rather than iguanas.
_z.: Oh that's his food you're stealing. What d'you expect, eh?!
Candy: Thanks, that's really interesting. Cats get a bad rep, but really we humans have fucked things up way worse, for sure...
Cappy: It is nature. Not always nice, but that's the way it is.
HtDJ: Rodents dead or alive - wasn't that a Bon Jovi song? Can Prince lick his own genitals?! And Alexis Arquette, too. Guess that'll stop once he has the transgender surgery, if he hasn't already. Has he? Is he still going to? Who knows...
we live in the countryside so there is a large amount of mouse and bird corpse removal involved. Especially with (now) 5 cats.
Noodle is the biggest hunter of the bunch, bringing in birds and mice. Mischa brought in a baby rabbit one morning. Heart breaking.
We both hate it when they bring in some small warm blooded animal, but I must confess we cheer when the nab the occasional fly or spider.
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