Cocoa - brought us another gift Saturday night,,

[benld74]

The wife and I were watching the OKST-OU game, so I wasn't paying too much attention when I opened the patio door to let her inside. It was cold and she'd been out for awhile. It was dark and she is a jet black bombay.

She came inside, went to the kitchen, and I began to watch the game again. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her jumping into the air, over and over. I see her TOSS something into the air, and then go after it.

I look closer at what she is doing. Why PLAYING with the LIVE MOUSE she just brought inside the house! 4 feet from the wife!

I said, "Ah, sh*t!" Walk over to the kitchen. The wife says, "What? (BIG OKST fan)". I kneel down, grab the mouse with my hand, get up, walk to the patio door, open, and toss mouse into neighbors back yard. Cocoa flies out the open door again.

The wife says, "Did she bring something inside?" When I told her what it was, she began to shiver,,,,,,,,

[ginnyinWI]

1. our cat brought in a live bunny once

I stupidly shook it out of her mouth, and it promptly scooted under the kitchen cabinets where nobody could get at it. While we were pondering whether to dismantle all of the cabinet to get it out, we decided to wait until the next day, where miraculously it had moved to the kitchen closet and curled up into a ball-- to wait for its mother to find it I guess. For some reason neither of the cats found it, and we were able to let it go outside safely.

Word to the wise: if you have a cat with a live "something" in its mouth, take them both outside before you attempt to disengage.

[KC]

3. Our cat

also caught and brought in a rabbit, a little baby. We didn't know it until his stare was locked in towards the back of the roll top desk. we were able to catch it but he had a little bite probably on the neck so we got in contact with a wildlife rescue woman and she said she would doctor it til big enough to make it on his own.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. When I had cats that went outside, we had "mouth check"

before the door opened after more than one present came in the house.

The mice were easy....I would enlist the help of the cats to corner it, when I would grab it and take it outside. I say this from experience----do not use this technique with a chipmunk. They bite the shit out of you. I have a trail of blood coming from my finger on the way to the door.

Mouth check!

[SharonAnn]

4. Unfortunately, the cat has found out that the dog door works for her, too.

So, last week I found a freshly dead mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor, three mornings in a row. The fourth day, it was a freshly dead bird.

None of them were stiff, yet. I picked them up using a paper towel and threw them over the balcony into the wild area.

[nadine_mn]

5. Our cat made "kitty doors" in all our screen windows

When he first came to us he was a stray so he would regularly "break out" of the house by destroying the screen windows (we didn't have AC and it was summer) - once he tried to bring in part of a rabbit and it got stuck in the window screen.

A few years later when we moved to our rental house in Minnesota (kitty became a strictly indoor cat after that incident) he 'christened' the rental house by making all new kitty holes in the screen windows - every single one, including the 2nd flr.

He finally (at age 13) has stopped but we know we can never have a doggie door.

[ginnyinWI]

6. I'm glad our present two are strictly indoor cats

They don't know they could probably wreck the screens and escape. They don't even know that they could probably push the screen door open, as it doesn't have a real latch. (shh...don't tell them!)

But we did end up with a hole in our kitchen window screen, an almost brand new one too: a squirrel decided that inside the house is where he/she could find more bread crusts like I had been throwing out onto the back deck. So it ate a hole in the screen and poked its head in, to see if that would help. The window was closed, fortunately! No more bread crusts on the deck--if I put any out, I deposit them well away from the house.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Indoor cats still hunt.

My three are strictly indoor cats, but I live in an old house and sometimes mice get in. They are promptly eaten. What's interesting is the wild enthusiasm with which the cats celebrate their catch - if I see a cat flinging a "toy" around like a maniac, I know it's not one of the toy catnip mice, but a real one. I think what the cat is doing is the equivalent of spiking the ball in the end zone.

Once, one of the cats caught a bat that got in the house. I saw him do it - he jumped about four feet straight up and snagged it right out of the air. Then he ran through the house with the bat in his mouth, but the bat was uninjured and it was flapping and squeaking. I managed to corner the cat under a coffee table and poke at him with a rolled-up magazine until he dropped the bat, whom I scooped up in a shoe box and set free outside. The cat seemed really pissed off at me - the bat was certainly the coolest thing he'd ever caught.

[nadine_mn]

8. no sh*t - our cat's nickname is "killer"

He is a hunter - our rental house has some holes and mice come in every winter, and every winter our cat's belly hangs a little lower. We set traps because I can't stand to see him play with them.

Sweet mother - the bat would scare the crap out of me. I am such a wuss, I would scream like crazy.

[ginnyinWI]

9. We used to have mice in our attached garage...

and yes, our indoor cat caught one or two in there. Didn't eat them though, and they seemed to be very young ones. But we solved it when we got a new seal for the bottom of the garage door--that's where they were getting in.

In our old (and older) house we had lots of mice, and one of our now departed cats would regularly kill them, eat half, and leave the other disgusting half of it in the dining room. Great fun.

[get the red out]

10. Ballgame snack

She probably figured everyone was ready for a ballgame snack