I am becoming my sim....

[fileg]

North-sim shares her space with a stripey grey cat she calls Quagga. If you have ever had Sims with cats, you know that they love to bring home the fruit of their hunting encounters as a gift for mom. Quagga in particular likes to try and present North with a mousie carcass under less than optimal circumstances. For example - when Raven, who North is trying to convince to move in with her, becomes suddenly interested in the love bed, Quagga will race in with deceased prey and frolic around the bed with it, and then leave it strategically placed on the floor.


My sweetie had already left for work, but I got a first hand demonstration this morning. We are currently sleeping on an air bed on the floor, so when the mailman woke me to deliver an early package, I thought I would crawl back in for another hour of sleep, but Frosty barreled into the bedroom after me, yowling.

I thought this was a regular cat complaint (you stood up, but you didn't feed me! Mroow!) but when I refused to get up again, he began to frolic around the bedroom, tossing something up in the air and catching it. Usually, he does this with a catnip carrot, but since I am only a few inches off the floor, and I was not interested in getting a drool-y wet cat toy in the face, I rolled over to throw it down the hall. Not a catnip toy, but thankfully not in bed with me... yet.

We then proceeded to have a difference of opinion on dead mice. Mom was very unreasonably trying to take it away for disposal, and Frosty (whose previous rodent experience consists of hiding in the closet when a hamster in a ball chased him) refusing to give it up. Stupid mother, can you not see that miniature mousie carcasses were just made for flinging around the bedroom?

Once I managed to wrestle it away from him, I realized I had no idea if he had killed it himself. Mice do get into the apartment crawlspaces in the winter, especially bitter snowy ones like this has been, and I was worried it had expired from poison. Not to cast aspersions on the hunting prowess of my mighty feline, but I have seen him spend an hour waiting for the laser pointer dot to come back out from under the couch. So, I have spent the day with a dead mousie in a handkerchief in the sink of the bedroom bath, and a very annoyed cat prowling about.

When Jim gets home, I get to present it to him. Mrrrrrow.

Comments

[fafojoy.livejournal.com]

I hate prying dead (and worse, live) critters from the jaws of my dogs and cats. Yuck!

The good news about most mouse/rat poisons is that cats are amazingly resistant to them. Most of the products on the consumer/residential market are long-acting anti-coagulants (blood thinners). Whereas a dog LD50 (lethal dose that kills 50% of dogs) for brodifacoum, a very popular product, is 0.25 mg/kg of body weight, for a cat that number is 25 mg/kg. So, in all my years in toxicolgy, we never saw a cat ill from eating dead mice. Hope you don't mind me butting in with that, but I hope it offers you some peace of mind!

[fileg.livejournal.com]

My mighty hunter seems fine, and the mousie went out to the hamster graveyard in my handkerchief. Thanks for caring.

The poor bitsy thing was so tiny.

[lilithilien.livejournal.com]

Awwww! He loves you!

And I'm sure Jim'll be so pleased with your kill. Wonder if he'll chase you and try to pry it from your paws?

[fileg.livejournal.com]

unlike Frosty, I gave it up happily.

For somebody that cuts to the front of the line for a chance to hold rodents, I was surprisingly squeamish about the teensy dead thing once I had it.

[kortirion.livejournal.com]

Ah the joy of cats who earn their keep! Purdey is a lethal hunter - two bells on his collar and he still catches them. He hunts garden mice at night, and interupts the late-night films mewling in triumph as he stalks in with the prize. Not too bad when they're deceased, but he can never understand why he gets scolded and I'm on my knees with a jam-jar trying to catch the lively ones he lets go - maybe he thinks I need the excerice!
Best remark: From Son to cat, who having brought home a mouse, abandoned it and took up his customary position for 'I'm hungry!' by the fridge door (that cat's not daft)

Son: "Don't think you can go out for a take-away and them get a cooked meal when you come home!"

[fileg.livejournal.com]

Take out! Howls!


Frodo, (my first cat, in my college days) was the mighty hunter in my life. Of course, he was my only indoor-outdoor. He had a habit of holding a live cricket in his mouth and cuddling his cheek against mine so I could hear the whirring. I am a terrible entemophobe, so that usually got him returned to the outdoors post haste.

The worst he ever did was bring me home a dead bird during an ice storm. My mom found it frozen the porch in the morning, and was so grossed out, she threw a tea towel over it and asked the boy nextdoor to remove it. It was frozen by the feet, but in typical teenage boy fashion, he heaved it up - leaving it's little frozen legs behind. As I left for school, my mum was pouring a kettle of boiling water over them.

None of my others have been allowed out on purpose. ick.

[myth-adventure.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the time one of my brood presented a half-eaten squirrel to me. In the middle of a Nebraska summer. On the carpet in the front room.

Taught me to not leave the screen door open! I'm still wondering if she killed it and ate the missing bits, or if she found it and and figured it'd be a nifty pressie for the Big Cat :) What could I do ... thanked her profusely, then got the rubber gloves and a thrash bag.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

Frosty was quite put out - not only didn't I thank him, I went back to bed without feeding him! Still, it's good to be the big cat...

[isil-elensar.livejournal.com]

My kitty, Muffin (r.i.p), in her younger days brought home a pressie for me. She mrowed loudly at the big picture window we had in Texas. She brought me home a bird. Small critter, and looked quite dead. I went to the door, which she scrambled to, and I opened it, planning to go outside so she can give me the gift there. NOPE! Muffin flies in (get it?) and goes straight to my room. Under the bed. With the bird.

I had always wanted a bird... but not a dead one.

I went to get said bird out from under my bed, and found out the poor thing was still very much alive. I got my dad to get it out. Not sure if the bird survived after all, but it was alive when it left my room.

Muffin was so proud... and smug... and her mommy was pleased that she never really brought any more surprises home. :-) I still miss her...

[fileg.livejournal.com]

I just told my bird story in answer to Kortirion, so I won't go there again. But yeah, birds are the bad.

[rennwench.livejournal.com]

::chuckles::

Silly kitties.... Good thing my doggy hasn't brought back his kill - an opossum - but the blood sure made a mess of his fur.

-rw

[fileg.livejournal.com]

the last time we had a mouse inside, Spoo cornered it and noone would believe he had something till it ran out the other side of the bookcase and ducked under the baseboards. This led to Spoo, head on the ground and tail in the air, peering under with Jim and my friend Mark beside him in the same position. Wish I'd had the digital that night.

When Chris lived in the woods, her baby Mithril would catch the mice that tried to come in the dryer vent, and bring them to Chris in bed, where she would lie on her chest and eat them - so, things could be worse.

Silly cat love.