Surprise, Surprise!
If you live with cats, then you know they are full of surprises. But cats aren’t the only ones with a surprise today. It’s Mancat Monday and Mondays with Merlin. Take your pick. This is your host, Merlin the meezer geezer, but you can call me anything as long as you don’t call me late for dinner. In my younger days, I could catch dinner with a flick of my paw. These days, I couldn’t catch a fly. No matter, that’s what the youngsters are for.
Layla screamed when she saw it. Yup, Odin and Domino decided to give the humans an Easter bunny as a gift. A real one. No, we won’t post a pic. Don’t kid yourself; even your sweet, little purr face puddy would kill if given half the chance. It’s in our DNA. It’s why we need lots of predator/prey playtime to drain that excess killer energy. We get lots of both kinds of play and the humans intercept the real “hunt” as often as possible. Some diehard indoor-only cat lovers might disagree, but we think we have the best of both worlds.
Look at Odin mid-pounce on an unsuspecting Domino. Odin has been honing his pouncing skills lately on anything that moves. All cats are natural born killers. Cats are instinctive but they also enhance their killing ability with training from other cats like their mother or other cats in their clan. Odin has learned from the best: Domino. He may be a lap cat now but he was feral for many years and that instinct will never disappear. We respect it and allow him to be a natural cat.
I think older cats are the best and older cat lovers are too. It’s one special cat lover’s birthday today and we’d like to say a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Marg from Marg’s Animals. She is tireless animal rescuer and beloved amongst the cat blogosphere. Thank-you to Ann from Zoolatry for making this photo collage.
12 Comments
Abby
Luckily the kitties are all indoor. No surprises unless something gets in the house and then it’s fair game.
purrs
>^,,^<
♥Abby♥Boo♥Ping♥Jinx♥Grace♥
Kathy Thompson
Happy Birthday and Thank You Marg!!!!
Skeeter is a long lean hunting machine and some days I have had 5-6 kills brought home. It is mostly field mice,moles,voles and the occasional shrew. There have been rats almost as big as my smallest cat and one young bunny. He sometimes brings in birds but they are usually Mocking birds that torment him until he gets so tired of it that he kills one. Last summer he would catch these tiny field mice and bring them home alive and well to his lil sissy cat Izzy. She doesn’t leave the yard so he brought home prey for her to learn how to hunt with. He would let them go on the porch and if they tried to get away from Izzy he would chase them back toward her. If I see it before damage is done then I rescue it. Most of the time the hunting is nocturnal so I only see my “gifts” in the morning. Skeeter and Izzy’s mom Kat.
Tinch
Happy Birthday, Marg! May you have many more.
Brian
Ya make me wanna pounce! Happy Birthday to the very special Marg! She is special to so many, but especially to us!!!
Tamago
Oh my gosh, real bunny! The girl kitty I had long time ago got me a mole, alive. I sure screamed. One of my boys is a very skilled killer. He has killed so many toys.
We wish a very happy birthday to Marg, too! She is a loving, caring, special lady!
Cheysuli
Georgia used to try and feed the Woman with her kills. The Woman would always praise her when she was there to give them to her directly (rather than leaving them by the door) but would always ask her to not do it again as she found she preferred the junk food from the grocer. It was hard not to be proud of Georgia when she was so proud of herself!
CATachresis
Yep! Those are natural instincts and should be respected. But we would rather they didn’t *sigh*
A big happy birthday to Marg 😀
Pam Kimmell
Hi Merlin…so Odin and Domino decided to give your Mom an Easter bunny – just not ALIVE….LOL Well, they can’t help themselves – we are animals after all right? Glad you all had a nice Easter!
Kitty Hugs, Sammy
Pam Kimmell
Boys will be boys but I’m SURE they just wanted to give your Mom an Easter Bunny for Easter…!! You’re right about “feralness” Merlin – I’m a feral but was adopted from the shelter as a tiny little guy and only outside on a harness so my natural tendencies to hunt are restricted to my toys inside! I’m glad you all had a nice Easter….
Kitty Hugs
Sammy
Fuzzy Tales
I’ve never minded when cats hunt and kill quickly, eat what they’ve caught. What bugs me is the toying with the hapless prey.
My former neighbour’s declawed cat excelled at bird-catching — last summer alone he caught several and left them by my front door step, in various stages of being eaten. (He would hang around my step more than his, because I cuddled him and gave him treats.)
My boys, on the other hand, haven’t known what to do with the couple of moles that have been in our little garden, and I’ve had to rescue the poor things.
If they would just kill them cleanly, I wouldn’t take issue. LOL.
Sue Janson
Nice photo collage for Marge. Happy Birthday, Marge. Thanks for all your rescue work.
Kathryn
I just love to see the pictures of the puddy tats, but … yes, once feral…I adopted a feral cat after the 20-year old Emma died and then the 7-month old Calico was hit by a car, and lo, we adoped a 3-year old cat that had been rescued in a house in Plymouth. She was found by the new homeowners, who found a cat under the porch. She was very sweet with us, absolutely loved us. I wanted to keep her in, after knowing what had happened to Calico, who just happened to have escaped one winter night.
But Huggie, wouldn’t have any of this staying indoors nonsense. The daily chipmunks were one thing. But when we returned from vacation (we’d given her a set up in the garagae (an 8-inch crawlspace) with bowls and bowls of water and bowls of dry food.., we found…
a grownup bunny and 5 baby bunnies…
with their
heads…
missing..
we were aghast. The kids were 2 and 4. We all saw it. The kids were accustomed to the early education of the split personality of cats, but this really galled us.
It was not long after that that Huggie herself didn’t come home one day. Must have been a car, but it was not in the immediate neighborhood, because nobody ever found her. Her daily jaunts were the end of her.
Then we had 6 years of non-cat pets, bunny/guinea pig (same cage) and 2 parakkets at the same time, then 2 gerbils. Finally, in 02, we went the cat route again, with our two boys.