How bad was your cat this week?

[sologdin]

my numbnut caught a bat once, brought it inside, let it loose to fly around. left severed mouseheads laying around otherwise.

[MinDonner]

My friends have a lazy fat cat who once hunted down and brought home a sausage. That's about the limit of what he can catch.

[Fragile Bird]

I'm laughing at the stories about lazy cats. :P

The live mouse thing - cats catch mice and wait to kill them. You know the saying about cats playing with their food? Apparently the purpose of catching a mouse, keeping it alive and batting it around, letting it try to escape by creeping away and then pouncing on it, bringing it back and batting it around some more, is for tenderizing the meat. :o

I'd try to find the research study on the internet but I'm playing lazy house cat at the moment.

ETA: So the cats that bring in the live mouse may have simply released it to have an indoor version of their game available, and you ruin it by catching the mouse and releasing it. I was walking past a neighbours house a few years ago and noticed a cat on the lawn doing something unusual, and saw he had a mouse that he was playing with. I yelled at the cat and took away the mouse, releasing it in some heavy undergrowth, and the cat looked so stunned and angry that I would do such a stupid thing it was amazing. I wish I had had a camera with me. He just glowered. I'm sure the mouse was a dead thing, it may have been kinder to let the cat have it, but it seemed like letting it crawl into a nook somewhere and die was kinder than continued torture.

We have a serious hunter on our street, a black cat that's absolutely deadly. Many houses have porches with eaves where birds make nests. He finds the nests and kills everything he can get his paws on.

[Chaldanya]

My friends have a lazy fat cat who once hunted down and brought home a sausage. That's about the limit of what he can catch.

Squeak, my stupid cat has bested various foes these include (but are not limited to) corn on the cob, broccoli (the proper kind not the plushie - take note Muppet), breaded mushrooms and some baked beans. The way he gets on his belly and stalks these very inanimate food stuffs is freakin' hilarious. He really thinks he's the shit for getting his paws and gob around some corn on the cob.

N

[awesome possum]

My wife got a new cat last year. She's an asshole. We got the stupid thing when it was a kitten, straight from the mother's teat. Feed it once a day.

It has no reason to be so goddamned crazy about food but nonetheless, she's crazy when it comes to food. We feed her once a day and she will lay in front of her bowl and eat until she is so full she just kind of crawls away to hide and sleep. When the food is inevitably gone after a couple hours and the dish is empty? She is officially starving despite getting fatter by the week.

She'll get on the kitchen table looking for scraps - which I'm going to break her of no matter what because that's disgusting. We've caught her trying to claw the pantry door open, and one time my wife left it open we caught her eating a raw potato. Caught her eating a baby sock, toilet paper, and the empty cat food bag she fished out of the trash.

And the most obnoxious part of when she's out of food is she starts beating up my Chloe, a 15-year-old, half-blind little ball of crankiness. It's gotten so annoying that I've started thinking about taking her to the pound, because no cat is worth the trouble. But I just kind of hate all cats but my grumpy, anti-social old lady who I've had since she was a grumpy, anti-social kitten.

[phedre]

We have a "Mice Caught" tally going on our blackboard. Current score - Hubby: 1, Cat: 0

He's in indoor cat, who generally likes to observe things (how's that spider move all by itself?), but rarely catches anything other than the occasional moth.

Although he did spend the first year of his life getting humped by a female dachshund, so that might have messed him up a bit ... :dunno:

[Seli]

Due to issues with neighbours it is now an indoor cat, who only gets to go out on his evening leashed walks. Despite that he manages to catch his fair share of moths, mosquitoes and flies. He has learned to respect bees and bumblebees, and never has been interested in spiders. Although he longingly observes the birds.

A major stalker of the red dot though.

[Nichole]

My cat is the scourge of the grasshopper population in late summer. He catches them, tears off one of their back legs and brings them in while still alive. Starting at around the end of August I start to find these poor grasshoppers scattered around my house. I try to catch them and put them back out side so they can at least die in their natural environment.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

growing up My Cat was scared of everything that moved. other than spiders and moths these she would hunt kill and eat.

but she would creep up on a mouse get very close, tentivly poke it with her paw than if it moved she would run away and hide for several hours.

however the Cat that lived next door to my Nan, this beast was called Micky, We called him Greedo, it suited him better. I never saw the thing go after mice and small birds. magpies and crows where teh smallest thing I whitnessed. and that cat was clever, it used to set traps, It would steel fatty bits of baccon or the foil tops from milk bottles and drop them on the tree stump in Nan's garden then lie in wait from one of his prefered ambush points. Greedo would also gift us and other houses with dead Chickens, Ducks, seagulls and the occasional goose. Once when I was playing at the bottom of the garden Greedo dragged in and left me with a half melted box of ice lollies. It was good being that Cat's friend.

[Lummel]

...Once when I was playing at the bottom of the garden Greedo dragged in and left me with a half melted box of ice lollies. It was good being that Cat's friend.

:laugh: what a great cat!

[Tears of Lys]

Greedo would also gift us and other houses with dead Chickens, Ducks, seagulls and the occasional goose. Once when I was playing at the bottom of the garden Greedo dragged in and left me with a half melted box of ice lollies. It was good being that Cat's friend.

Chickens, ducks, seagulls, and a goose? How big was this cat?! :stunned:

[Pebble thats Stubby]

on the larger side of most domestic cats, maybe approching a small fox. He was all mussel and no fat.

He could also be very sweet cuddly and protective, providing he didn't veiw you as food.

[Gillio]

We had a ct called Micky growing up, in our first house in Australia. We were the only house on the street, the rest was bush.

Micky used to catch lizards, and put them in mum's bed. Mum said it wasn't the lizards so much, she culd put them outside, it was finding the detached tail, still wiggling, later.

[brook]

Our cat brought a lizard up on to my bed to play with a couple of weeks ago, it was still alive and in my attempts to rescue it the poor thing escaped to somewhere under my bed. I hope it has since found his way out.

Other than that and one unfortunate baby blue tongue he's confined himself to rodents and pigeons. The native birds thankfully seem smart enough to not get caught.

[honeyed chicken]

Our cats are mixed: indoor, 1 outdoor. This came about when my mil went into a nursing home and left us her outdoor cat. we briefly contemplated making him all indoor as well, but decided that wouldn't work. Fortunately he's old enough (nearly 15) that he doesn't seem to hunt much any more (he used to all the time) and only started asking to go out when the temps got to around 20 C on a regular basis (last month). I have never seen him stalk our bird feeders like other neighborhood cats do and I've never seen him with a bird.

One story about this hunter - his name is Shadows which fits his coloring.

He used to be pretty stand offish, but is getting over that. Last summer, Mrs.Chicken and I were eating supper out on the patio and apparently it was something he liked the smell of. Shadows came over & put his paws up on my leg and tried to help himself to a bite. I shooed him away 3 times before he got the message and disappeared. 30 seconds later he reappeared with a mouse. He casually tossed it in the air a couple times to display it to me, "see here. look what I've got. trade you?" He kept trying to make his intentions clear to no avail. Finally, my dinner was done and he saw he was getting nowhere with me and ate the mouse.

Eta:

I'm not a Garfield fan, but today's strip fits here: http://www.gocomics.com/garfield/#.U5iDYSj-Stc

[jarl the climber]

It was funny, just the other day or so my Cat was chilling by the Corkscrew Willow around dusk and there was a Rabbit no more than 3 feet away from her going right about its business. There was another 20ft. behind it and it didn't see the Cat as it was screened by the tree and its buddy didn't sound the alarm so when it came up behind a few minutes later it came face to face with the Cat. It was like, Shit a Cat for like a second and Patches just sat there inscrutable, didn't do a thing.

Now granted shes like 14 or 15 now and back 5 or 6 years ago that would have been a different story. All she does nowadays is lay around outside and check things out, that's her TV except for winter then she lays around inside and does nothing at all. All though if mouse did get in the house she would take that as a personal affront, usually her and the other Cat get a mouse or two every winter, it usually takes a month or two to root them out but sooner or later they catch them at the food bowl, its really just a matter of time.

[Arkhangel]

One night when I was home alone it was raining very heavily, and I heard the cat meowing at the door. I jumped up quickly to let him in, before I registered that it wasn't his complain-meow, it was his I've-caught-you-a-delicious-present meow (which had a specific tone he never used at other times). As he skipped in past me I just caught a glimpse of a long, scraggly tail hanging out the side of his mouth. I ran after him and tried to grab him before he could put it down, but too late! He dropped it, a dirty great live rat, in the middle of the kitchen floor. Much terrified squeaking ensued from all parties. Eventually I managed to get a washing basket over it, but unfortunately inside the washing basket was my running shoe and the poor little rat crawled in there trying to hide. All this time the front door was still open and the rain was pouring down outside, so I had to grab the shoe by the laces, bolt to the door and fling it out into the night. Neighbours must have thought I was nuts.

Cat was very annoyed with me.

[Tobin]

I remember the Muppet thread, it still makes me break out into giggle fits, :lmao:

Some years ago, my boy came running through the yard with a dove in his mouth and a big orange cat hot on his tail. I got Blackavar to give me the bird (which he wasn't thrilled about) and I chased off the orange cat. In looking at the dove, I realized the tooth marks were too wide for my boy's mouth, so I figured that's why the orange cat was so mad. Little thief, :P

Blackavar was a great bird hunter - my mom would yell about how she was going to take him to the pound because she kept finding poofs of colored feathers.

My current brat, Shae (well, she is long limbed and exotic looking), is indoor only and maybe a year old.

I have a big picture window in the front of my apartment and one night I opened the blinds to look outside. Suddenly a black streak zipped past me and smacked into the glass - apparently she had jumped from the coffee table over the couch with the intention of going through the (closed) window.

She has this thing where she likes to ambush you around corners and jump up to grab your butt. It's a quick reminder of when her claws need to be trimmed...

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

My cat decided at 2:30 AM that I needed to pet her right then.

I'm tired.

[Ysatis]

I have two cats, Stupid and Ugly. They are inseparable and beat on each other from dawn till dusk, playing of course. They are young. They don't bother my birds because my birds are bigger than they are! Whenever they do venture out into the bird room I hear silence for about 30 seconds and then my Amazon says "want some water?" then they all start screaming random words at the cats. The cats flee every time. The only ones they are likely to be dangerous to is themselves.