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Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Would your cat eat you if you shrank?

28 replies

sandrapinchedmysandwich · 11/04/2025 22:04

Random Friday night thought. If you shrank to the size of a large mouse but had the same voice and smell, do you think your cat would eat you / kill you? My cat was just being super lovely and rubbing her face on mine which I have heard is sharing scent so we smell the same and are family. So how about if I was tiny? Would she leave me in peace or do you think it would be curtains?

OP posts:
FrogsAndDaffodils · 11/04/2025 22:06

I think mine would let me live, but she'd eat my partner. She would probably play with the dogs, terrorise them a bit, but let them live.

TomatoSandwiches · 11/04/2025 22:08

They wouldn't be my cats if they didn't 😂

TwentyTwentyFive · 11/04/2025 22:09

One of ours wouldn't he's too lazy to catch food that moves but the other absolutely would! She's a proper huntress and would see it as her sole mission in life to catch and consume me. I've seen her stalk and terrorise a spider for well over an hour before so she'd probably torture me for a bit of Friday evening fun first too before moaning about how she now only had two humans left to feed her.

PsychoHotSauce · 11/04/2025 22:10

The most she'd do is stretch out a paw to lazy-bap me before going back to sleep.

Turmerictolly · 11/04/2025 22:11

🤣

Judystilldreamsofhorses · 11/04/2025 22:12

I don’t think so - I might be naive/stupid, but I genuinely believe he loves me and would not wish me dead. He is very greedy though so who knows.

DoNoTakeNo · 11/04/2025 22:13

No but based on his behaviour this evening, he would sit on me purring for a while & then whack me with his big paws, sharp claws out. Then probably break my back & play with me for a while, then take me into the kitchen to - errr… show me what a clever cat he is. (Hhhmmmm. Not sure quite how that bit would work!)

sandrapinchedmysandwich · 11/04/2025 22:14

My cat brings birds and voles in half dead and then just stares at them until they die or I put them out. Quite frankly I would be terrified

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MaryPoppinsAtAll · 11/04/2025 22:14

My cat used to really love the smell of mice, but I think he would have chased anything that ran away.

I know he liked the smell because sometimes his live mice ran behind the freezer and he used to jam his head in the corner and take deep lung fulls of the lovely mousey smell for days untl they came out.

Pigeonqueen · 11/04/2025 22:15

Mine doesn’t hunt anything, thankfully. He stands at the window and cheerfully chirrups at the birds even though he’s allowed outside so I don’t think he’d be remotely bothered by me being small enough to hunt. On the odd occasion he does see a wood pigeon in the garden at the same time as him he runs inside to tell me 🙄😂

Would your cat eat you if you shrank?
sandrapinchedmysandwich · 11/04/2025 22:16

Pigeonqueen · 11/04/2025 22:15

Mine doesn’t hunt anything, thankfully. He stands at the window and cheerfully chirrups at the birds even though he’s allowed outside so I don’t think he’d be remotely bothered by me being small enough to hunt. On the odd occasion he does see a wood pigeon in the garden at the same time as him he runs inside to tell me 🙄😂

This is very sweet

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70isaLimitNotaTarget · 11/04/2025 23:28

If I spontaneously turned into a magpie feather our boy would be ecstatic ( or a pile of feathers to keep him entertained)

Failing that , small enough for him to push me down the stairs so he can make it look like a Terrible Accident

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 12/04/2025 05:26

Anyone seen 'The Incedible Shrinking Man'?

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 12/04/2025 05:27

Just saying...

Would your cat eat you if you shrank?
Willandra · 12/04/2025 05:44

Oh, good question.

My current cat is a Rag Doll diagnosed with extreme fear aggression due to inbreeding. He tries to eat me now!

He was on kitty Valium but that didn’t help. He is now on kitty ecstasy and that helps until it wears off, then my Staffy protects me by chasing the cat off. If the cat turns on the dog, the dog gets scared and runs back to me. This is one aggressive fur ball. The dog has never hurt the cat .

Yep, the cat would eat me if I was small enough but I doubt this particular cat would be smart enough to catch me or anything else.

Willandra · 12/04/2025 05:52

Sorry tried to add photo.

Willandra · 12/04/2025 05:54

Willandra · 12/04/2025 05:52

Sorry tried to add photo.

Edited

maybe this time...

Would your cat eat you if you shrank?
Dunkou · 12/04/2025 09:50

My cat loves me but I think if I was mouse size her natural reactions of ‘it’s small-moving-catch it’ would take over. It would be quite the triumph for her as I’ve never seen her catch more than a spider.

Toddlerteaplease · 12/04/2025 10:00

I doubt it. Penelope is a fussy madam.

Allergictoironing · 12/04/2025 18:30

Going by the couple of times I've had mice in the house. Girlcat would hunt me down & chase me until she caught me, then play with me carelessly enough so I could escape. After about 5 days of this, I would probably either die or escape - she used to leave the dead bodies out for me to find once they'd stopped being fun to play with.

Boycat was the same, except he would usually not let them escape. He would play with them until dead, then leave the remains for me to clear up. And when I say remains, for both cats they would leave bodies that (apart from maybe a little soggy) would look perfect, as though the mouse had died in it's sleep.

As for the one recent time a mouse came in, Tobias (the former stray for over 2 years!) would watch in a slightly bored manner while Girlcat did her thing.

I doubt cats think far enough ahead for her to realise that no Allergic slave = nobody to give her head and belly rubs on demand.

caringcarer · 12/04/2025 18:41

I think if a cat is trapped inside a house and their owner dies and no one finds them they get so hungry they eat their owner after they are dead. I know it doesn't sound nice but I suppose it's their survival instinct kicking in.

Bjorkdidit · 12/04/2025 19:00

They could well do. I think the only advantage we have over them is that we're bigger and can pick them up. Or do things like put them in a cat carrier or shut them in a room after a fight.

But if we were the same size, we'd be much at a disadvantage. We foster so have had 6-12 cats constantly for the last decade. A few months ago one of our nursing mums brought in a rat she'd killed that was nearly as big as she was and was literally bigger than my forearm. And just last night one of the others saw off a fox twice his size. I was having an early morning cup of tea and he came in 'all fluffed up with his tail twice the size of his body'. I looked on the security camera app and there was a clip of him hissing and screaming at a fox in the front garden. Pound for pound and without their teeth and claws, we'd have no chance.

NeilDiamondsBlowDry · 12/04/2025 19:05

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats that film is so sad 😢

Init4thecatz · 12/04/2025 19:08

She literally goes everywhere on my shoulder, so I'd either get trampled to death as she tries to jump on me, or we'd swap roles and I'd be her rider!

Seriously79 · 12/04/2025 19:09

I would be dismembered and left on the kitchen floor if one of them found me.

The others would be fine.