Anyone else's cat a killer?

[Pennythedog]

My cat is blind in one eye but somehow his hunting skills are really very good. I try to check his mouth when he comes in at night but the other night he brought a mouse in. The poor mouse was still alive. I'm heavily pregnant and really squeamish and totally panicked about what to do. I ended up taking the cowards way out and just shutting them in the kitchen. I felt awful :(

Yesterday he killed a pigeon around the side of our house. It is a mass of feathers and blood there now. I'm going to have to psych myself up to go and clean up the mess.

The other day I found a mouse head and some organs in the hall. I nearly threw up trying to clean it up.

I know I am really weak. Being pregnant always makes me squeamish for some reason. I just wondered how other people cope with their little killers.

Remind yourself this is his way of demonstrating the cat equivalent of love and family membership. Steel yourself and make a big fuss if him, praising him for contributing to the household. The live animals are so you can improve your hunting skills. If you berate him he will think you are angry because he is not trying hard enough and you will end up with bigger/more dead things. Several bells attached to the collar can help too.

Cats kill.

theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

Keep them in at night is the advice they give here in NZ. We have a much bigger problem because our native wildlife evolved without mammalian predators. The response our wildlife (mostly birds) evolved to aerial predators is to freeze. Not great when cats and rats are after you!

I love cats but this is their nature.

Just wasted way too much time on oatmeal, when I have a deadline to meet.
Thanks for that, giantpenguin.

Yep, last week he brought in a very large rabbit through the cat flap-he had decapitated it, horrible but he's a cat. Have put bigger bell on his collar.....

Can you keep him in at dawn and dusk? Cats are crepuscular hunters (and apex predators to boot) so that might reduce the number of kills a bit.

YY to giving your cat lots of fuss and praise when he brings you something, even as you choke back the chunder

My two cats are very predatory and in the summer months their rodent kills can be in double digits every day. I used to try and rescue the poor blighters (usually having to give them the coup de grace with a housebrick) but when I realised that this made the cats just catch more, I left the squeakers to their fate. I figured that if one vole dying a protracted death saved 10 others (and savedme having to do the brick thing ) then that was, on balance, ok.

Our cat is also a serial killer. Thankfully my husband deals with her victims, I would really struggle to do this.

luckily for the wild life round here my prolific ginger ninja killer cat girl has gone to rainbow bridge probably being plagued by all the mice and shrews she mangled/killed/ate in 12 years the ones that are still here cant be arrised with all that hunting stuff so i dont get bodies by the dozen any more

My Old Boy never bothered to hunt. He used to mug Old Lady for her catches when she brought them in

Old Lady was the runt of her litter and we weren't totally sure she'd survive but six months on she'd turned into the most predatory of our cats. I didn't like it when she brought mice and birds in (usually mice) but part of me was sneakily proud that this shy, tiny cat could be so cunning. She caught her last mouse (that I know of) in July when she was 18, just three months before she had to be put to sleep . The other day I saw one of the little buggers strutting across the kitchen floor without a care in the world

We got our cat when she was six weeks old, she'd been rescued by the RSPCA due to neglect. She's grown into a gorgeous, healthy little lady - but to me she'll always be that tiny furry bundle that that needed lots of care and protection.

And then she goes out and kills things. Which rather blows my 'defenceless kitten' image!!!

That Oatmeal site is too damn funny!

I think I would die if he brought home a headless rabbit!

I don't tell him off for killing but I suppose I don't really praise him that much either. I will give it a try!

I think he just loves hunting. I was watching him earlier and he saw the neighbour's cat so hit behind a lamp post then when the other cat walked by he jumped out and pretended to attack him. The neighbour's cat is quite old and just gave him a WTF look.

He does it to me too when I'm coming up the stairs, he hides then waves his paw at me when I go by.

On the positive side he never hurts people or other cats. Even when my daughter was a baby and would go and lie on top of him, he never scratches or bites.

Our previous cat was a moggy, and never ever hunted or killed anything in her life - for her food came from a tin. The current mistress of the house is a pedigree - Maine coon - and comes from umpteen generations of breeding queens kept in cages. She would prefer to hunt her own than eat tinned food.

They're all different.

Mad wee tortie doesn't hunt. She once caught a mouse and looked rather suprised and unsure of the next move.

Huntercat is a huge fluffball of a tabby rescue and very gifted at the hunt. He adores it while being totally affectionate and patiently longsuffering with the preschoolers at home.

Yesterday we were putting on shoes for school when DD (just 5) said quite calmly I think Huntercat has brought something in - yup, dead shrew in the hallway. We admired its soft coat, cute nose and whiskers and the unfortunate hole in its chest before I lobbed it back into the garden where Huntercat was stalking the garden hedge waiting for something to move.

He is what he is. And the kids have seen pigeons, shrews, moles, bluetits, rabbits, wrens and all their innards in great colourful detail. I am waiting for a pheasant to be dragged through the catflap next...