Do all cats bring you “gifts”

[Aple]

Friend is finding a home for her neighbour’s (who has died) cat. I like animals but my only hesitation is coming across a half eaten rodent in my home. It is a huge fear of mine. Do all cats do this?

There is another family who can take the cat (already have one) but my friend is offering him to us first. DD (10) has been wanting a cat for ages but we’ve just never got around to it

My boy is too lazy and getting on a bit, he'd think it beneath him 😁

Every cat I've ever had has done this

Mine used to , but has slowed down over the years, don't bother with a bell collar as they don't work .

We have had a few cats and only one ever caught mice, he didn't bring them in, we would see him with them in the garden now and again.

Ours was a devil for doing this, but he grew out of it and got lazy as he got older. He never brought them into the house anyway - he tossed them round the lawn and then ditched them for me to pick up.

All mine ever brought back was the foil from cigarette packets, and once a raw sausage that he hid under the kitchen mat.

I've had cats all my life- usually in multiples. (I'm 52). Only one cat ever brought gifts. One of our current ones. She's 15 now though and is slowing down a bit.

Another used to do a poo in a shoe every time she came home from the cattery. That was just telling us off though.

Oh! One of them brought home aa hot sausage when our neighbour was having a BBQ one day. But that was not a gift for us- hers and hers alone.

I've just done rough count- I have had 13 cats in my time. That's an unlucky number. Might need to go get another one sharpish.

It's a lottery. I've had many cats. Some did to the extreme live baby rabbit in the garden/ massive fish/pheasant. Then I've had lazy cats that couldn't catch their own shadow.

Can you ask the current owner what the cats like?

My cat who is 10 has always brought something in but I get really cross with him if its a bird. He has brought in a bat, some frogs and lots of mice, always into our bed room. Found loads of half eaten mice under my bed.

My cat (who I've owned for three years) has brought me in total I think 3 or 4 mice in that time. So its not an everyday occurrence, but is has happened. The mice have been live and unharmed mostly (I catch them with some humane mouse traps). Only once has he brought me a killed mouse.

No, he hates going outside but he does eat plastic

I spend a ridiculous amount of time wrestling plastic off him or calling him a fat plastic eating mole

Oh he did bring me a dead bird once
i think it was already dead, and I had just had an operation so he was trying to look after me maybe?
never done it before or after

My cat likes to play in the back garden with the corpses of any mice that he kills. He has never brought one of his victims inside the house, which is very considerate of him. His predecessor used to bring mice in, and used to kill them and swallow them whole. As she got older, she became lazier and would let the mice escape. We then had to capture and remove the escaped rodents from the house.

Changes to behaviour like this could mean there's an underlying issue. Might be worth a check up at the vets.

I’ve had three cats. Never been bought a dead gift. I get hair bobbles and dirty laundry though.

I have 3 cats. I've had 2 live birds from one cat and a series of leafs from another. Once had a starburst wrapper too.

I've had 5 cats and only 1 dead bird presented artistically on the doorstep.

Plenty indoor giant autumn spiders lined up in the morning though.

We used to have 2 cats

Our girl, who has now died, never brought anything home.

Our boy, never brought mice, etc, indoors, but I’d forever be finding half eaten mouse bottoms on my front door mat. He’d regularly bring home other stuff he’d robbed though (random socks, other people’s cat food pouches, raw sausages, etc) He’s got a bit old for it now and hasn’t brought anything home for the last couple of years.

Mine has never bought anything indoors but kills the odd one indoors. I wouldn’t get a cat if you really can’t deal with a dead mouse though because it’ll happen at least occasionally.

Every cat is different..

No, my last cat we actually taught not to hunt. In the end, birds came into the garden (even the house on occasion!), trusted him as well as in the churchyard behind our house. I even saw him twice sniffing noses of squirrels, both trusting each other. He was an amazing and incredibly smart cat tho, never encountered one like him before or since but he was an utter shit when it came to other cats, he'd go out solely to beat any up. Cost me a fortune on water pistols for neighbours and chip cat flaps so he'd not go into their homes.

The cat we have now will on a rare occasion bring a mouse. She once brought in a live one, which hid under the cats pile of blankets. I went to tidy them up and the mouse ran onto my shoulder, then down my top! That was a bit freaky, but it was also amusing because my cat watched it happen and didn't move. She does however, bring in rubbish. We call her the 'keep Britain tidy cat' because I've woken up to McDonalds rubbish, fish pie lids, several bits of paper - all sorts where she's brought them in during the night and left them either by the bed or, if the rubbish too big to fit through the catflap, they're left outside.

We have three neutered males - one is too lazy to hunt, one is too stupid and the third brings in anything from dead pigeons, to living mice, to random food items he’s stolen off the neighbours 🤣

My three-legged cat brought me a 'kill' - an empty crisp packet. He was so proud of his little self!

We had two neutered males who brought nothing in during their long lives.

We didn’t know how lucky we were - our current neutered male cat brings things in multiple times a week. Alive, which is good, but we have to go around chasing them! We keep him in at night, but he still brings things in during the day.

I have had many cats and they all brought in gifts.

The dead gifts were less stressful than the living ones, dropped at my feet.

I've had 7. Only 2 have ever gifted me dead things and one of them only once or twice. The other one though is a prolific hunter.

The others have never bothered. Those have all been girls.