ain't nothin' like the love of a kitty

[snugglekitty]

My cat Charlie just brought me a mouse.

This is especially funny because it's Jim's cat, Pretzel, who has acted totally obsessed with the mice in our house and stares at their egress points all day long. My cat is the old mellow one. Pretzel is the frisky adventurous one.



Anyway, I told Charlie he was a very good boy and let him play with it for a few minutes before I took it away. (Being a housecat, he doesn't get that he could eat the mouse in its present form. And although he certainly has the right, I'm not sure I have the stomach to skin and bone it and put it in the cat food dish.) I told him that I appreciated the present but I wasn't going to eat it right now, I was saving it for later.

I actually am very happy. We've had a mouse problem for a while, and I wasn't sure how much of a deterrant the cats were going to be. Having a cat bring you a freshly killed mouse is much better than finding a partially decayed one in your cupboard. It's all good. And hey, it's not like I was really asleep anyway.

I think the adrenaline surge that happened when I realized just WHAT the cat was playing with on top of my covers will probably prevent me from going back to sleep. But that's okay - wasn't planning to do much today anyhow.

Heh. I'm going to give them fresh food today, that's for sure. Homemade fancy food with ground beef, not the canned stuff we usually give them. Perhaps that will be the reward for mousing from now on.

Comments

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Oh such a good cat.

My cat Tiger used to give me lots of "treats" which I convinced him to stop doing mostly because half the time he didn't kill them, he just maimed them. I think he wanted me to learn how to hunt and kill. We thought we convinced him to stop delivering me tasty treats, but actually we convinced him to stop killing them. So, he would corner a mouse, pin it and then look at me quizically. The mouse would wiggle free, he'd pin it again and give me a mournful look. He would do this until the mouse died of a heart attack, so we learned that our only option was to wait until the mouse was pinned, then scoop it into a container and dispose of it outside.

I think your plan of telling the cat you'll eat his present later is a good one. Also, lavish praise for his warrior nature might be nice.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yup, that's how mother cats teach their kittens to hunt. First they give them dead prey, then maimed prey, then live prey. He was probably very concerned for your survival as an adult cat.

Yes, I called him the Mighty Hunter and gave him kitty treats.