Headless cat in garden, a bit freaked out and concerned by what might have happened.

[Chocolatestain]

This isn’t pleasant but hopefully the title will have acted as a trigger warning (and I’ve posted in AIBU rather than one of the pet boards as it’s probably most triggering to pet owners).

We live rurally with a large front garden. This morning I noticed a dark shape in the middle of the front lawn and when I went to investigate I could see it was the corpse of an animal. It took me a while to work out what it might be. The head was missing and the tail was only a few centimetres long. The fur was longish, dark grey and matted with mud. At first I thought it might be a very large rabbit or a hare because of the fur and position it was lying in, but then I noticed its claws and realised it was probably a cat. I phoned the local vet, which is just at the end of our lane, and asked if anyone had reported a cat missing. They suggested I bring it in to check for a microchip and said they could cremate it if no-one came forward to claim it. The vet confirmed that it was definitely a cat and not microchipped, so possibly a stray. She was as baffled as I am as to how it ended up in our garden.

Has anyone encountered anything likes this before? I’m really hoping that it’s a kind of weird fox behaviour, but my worry is that there is some sick animal torturer hanging around our garden. I have two cats of my own and next door has a little dog. It looked as if the head had been taken off fairly cleanly and there were no other signs of injury (apart from the shortened tail) although I realise cats have tough skin and internal injuries aren’t always visible. It wasn’t flung over the wall as it was too far into the garden so something carried or dragged it there. Would a fox eat a cat’s head and just leave the rest of the body? We’ve left the electric gates open for the last few days due to having a lot of deliveries, but we’ll definitely be shutting them tonight.

Yes, this is probably the case. It would explain the lack of obvious injuries (more consistent with being hit by a car than actually killed by a fox). I would have expected it to stash the rest somewhere for later rather than leaving it in full view for other scavengers but maybe it got disturbed.

Aww I remember this exact thing when I was a child. Our cat went missing, and we found it outside behind the shed with it's head taken off. A fox had got it - or this is what we presumed anyway. Awful. X

Fox

DP once found half a fox in our garden - think it was the head end so head shoulder and one leg. Thankfully he buried it before I saw it. Assumed another fox did it.

Have you heard of The Cat Killer, in and around South London, he beheads the cat and sometimes the tail. Then places the body in a front garden. I think he keeps the head as a trophy. Google it and also look up SNARL

I saw a headless cat, the day after my sons beloved cat went missing. With the head gone I couldn't tell if it was our cat or not ans spent 7 weeks thinking it was but our cat had simply got lost in woods nearby. So yes I've experienced it, it was also very rural where this poor cat was

This is what I was going to say too!!

They could have dug up someone's buried pet. More likely than attacking one. We live on a farm and learnt young to bury pets very deep, and even then they dug up my rabbit and left scraps of fur all over the garden.
And not that unusual to eat the head, we had a dog that faced with an entire dead chicken chose the feet first then left the rest. Lots of tasty squishy crunchy bits are often more appealing than muscle meat.

Fox, most likely. When we lived rurally, our cats used to do this to rabbits. It's just nature's, grim unfortunately but normal

Foxes don't tend to use blades, so if it's a clean cut like you say, please report to the police (non-urgently of course).

There are psychos in this world unfortunately and it would be good to at least report in case other animals are found in the same condition in the area.

I have a photo of one of my cats lying relaxed about 2 metres in front of an equally relaxed sleeping fox. Both peacefully ignoring each other.

Foxes don't bother fit house cats. The cats are agile and much lighter so escaping is easy.

Alternative theory to hit by a car might be that it was a pet buried not quite deep enough (I know most people chip, but still).

I used to work in a city park where people without gardens would sometimes bury their pets, but not deep enough, so the foxes would dig them up. Unfortunately we had to bag up and bin the pets as we had no other way to securely dispose of them. As an animal lover I found this very painful.

PSA: don't bury your pets in public parks, unless you bury them very deep 😬

However my next door neighbour had her Yorkshire terrier killed in front of her by a large dog fox who walked straight down the garden and shook the poor little thing. One vicious shake and its neck was broken.

Turned some idiot family down the lane had been feeding the fox, so it had lost its fear of people.

This is freaking me out. I got a new cat today and was planning on getting a cat flap in a few weeks but that ain't happening now

I Googled the cat killer and it seems the Met concluded it was foxes rather than a person, although SNARL weren’t convinced. At least I now feel a bit less daft for not being sure what had had beheaded the cat if it took a full-scale police investigation to determine what was happening to the ones in London!

The vet said they would make a note of it in case anything similar occurs. Apparently there was a situation with someone torturing pets locally a few years ago so they are aware that it happens.

I wouldn’t have expected a fox to leave the rest either op.

Foxes, like dogs, can kill animals almost their own size without visible injury - they do it by shaking the prey.

They eat the head first because they are after the brain tissue. Foxes are notorious for only eating the head and leaving the rest. They will go through a whole pen of hens or guinea pigs in this way.

My cat was killed by a very bold fox - my husband found his decapitated body near the entrance to a den. We knew it was the fox as we'd seen it multiple times (in daylight) and it also killed most of our chickens and all of our ducks.

I've also found lots of headless corpses of small prey animals that my (new) cat has discarded. He seems to go for the head as a preference too 🤢

I’m not questioning it, more just saying to op I don’t think she’d have been alone in thinking a fox would have eaten more. I thought foxes kind of binged when they caught something. I’ve seen carcasses pretty much stripped. But obviously I’m wrong. Never eaten with one!

It's a pretty rare occurrence! Your cat would far rather take a rare chance against a fox and get to go outside than live indoors.

Not really. If you let your cat out, you have to accept that there is a fair chance of being run over, killed by a dog or fox, or any number of other things.

@Chocolatestain foxes have decapitated cats twice in my street over the last year. Both cats used to sit with the local foxes (I’ve seen one of mine sitting calmly next to a local fox). As soon as both cats became sick/slow (elderly) they were killed. Neighbour heard and partially saw it happen with one. It really is just down to nature.

@LameBorzoi we've had cats my entire life. We live in the country - we've never had one run over or killed by a dog or fox.

Thank you everyone for educating me about fox behaviour. Although we’ve lived in the country for a while I’ve never kept the kind of animals that attract foxes (chickens, rabbits, etc.) so am not that familiar with their killing habits. The occasional carcass I find in the garden is usually pretty well picked over, but probably the rats and crows have been at it.

Given how manky the poor creature’s fur was it may well have already been dead before the fox got hold it. I’m not overly concerned for my two cats as they’re young and agile. Personally I’d rather they had a happy, outdoor life doing cat things and accept the risks that come with that. (One of mine is a climber and my curtains would be in shreds if she didn’t have access to the trees and pergola in the garden!)

I’m really sorry for all of you who’ve found your own pets decapitated. It’s always hard to lose a pet, but that’s particularly grim.