Sunday, October 4, 2009

Hunting Cat Follies, Part 2

Feathers Everywhere!

I arrive home from the store to find feathers all over the living room. Apparently one of the cats managed to catch a bird on the cat patio & of course brought it inside. Feathers were on the couch, under the couch, in the bookcases, under the computer table, in the photo album table, drifting into the kitchen and dining room and heading for the bedrooms. This is not the first time they have brought a caught bird into the house but it is a rare occurrence. A lot of vacuuming later, the feathers were cleaned up.
I really don't like it when they get a bird. But I figure that any bird that can be caught by front claws removed cats (done before I ever had them) deserves to be removed from the breeding population.
I would rather they catch rodents which are destructive and messy and noisy (Ever hear one chewing on your house? It gets very loud.) and dangerous (They will chew the insulation off electrical wires.). Oh well, the cats do have fun.

1 comment:

quietann said...

I was living in Irvine in the early 1990s, during one of those years where it rained and rained and rained. We had bird feeders on the balcony, and also the cats' litterbox. Never had a problem until it rained and rained and rained and all the little birdies became waterlogged. My poor room-mate came home one very rainy day and found 5 birds in the apartment, 4 dead, and one very pleased cat. That cat was also declawed (came to me that way) and extremely fat and lazy, but apparently able to catch birds if they were too soaked to fly away...

The cats I have now are indoor-only. Older cat came from a medical school breeding facility and as such, was quite limited in her experience of the world. The first time she saw a bug crawling across the floor, she was fascinated... until it crawled up close enough to touch her paw, and she jumped back about 3 feet. Poor cat!

(Took Feronia on a trail ride today BTW... She was quite good, except when we encountered a small screaming child, and who can blame her for wanting to spin and go home? Luckily her horse pals were ahead of her, so she decided it was OK to face the screaming monster...)