Furry little Dexter's

[JWR]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

[Gonzai]

Hence why I own a dog.

Cats are just plain evil.

[JWR]

Hence why I own a dog.

Cats are just plain evil.

I know you just can't stand the competion

[Gonzai]

Yeah - I suppose that is what it could be.

I guess I always just preferred to go out running with my dog as ooposed to
running by myself and coming home to a dead bird or rabbit on my doorstep.

I have to be honest, I don't miss being woke up at 3:00 AM to a wild animal
screeching because my cat was carrying it around in her mouth. And ya know,
waking up to a dead animal laying on top of me - uh yeah - my dog would never
do that.

Must be jealousy!!

[tex-chan]

Your link cracked me up!

I'm happy to say my current cat is firmly in the "non-murderer" category. She is strictly indoors and never sets foot outside. This doesn't mean that she's not constantly plotting ways to knock off the hamster or my youngest dog ... but, so far, she hasn't acted on any of these impulses. She was outdoors when I first got her, so I'm certain she killed plenty of things back then. (Mostly for survival, as her previous owners abandoned her with no food or water) So maybe I can consider her "reformed"?

[ReiTheJelly]

My two cats are definitely little killers. One of them has even figured out how to take down adult rabbits! Sometimes I find the odd body-part around the yard, but they eat most of what they kill, so it doesn't bother me. They've never brought me a whole dead animal before. I guess I'm not cool enough to receive presents from them.

[sensei]

Meh. IMHO it anthropomorphizes cats, which were very carefully designed by Mother Nature to be predators. That's a design we can lovingly thwart (my daughter's Toby is an indoor cat who is fed well and murders nothing but dots from a laser pointer). But it's also one that I found I could live with. My previous cat, Oliver, was a dedicated and professional predator whose craft was a joy to watch as he prowled the corners of his territory.

He did in and ate probably hundreds of voles, mice, and rabbits, and yet somehow he never seemed to scratch the surface of the prey population. Baby bunny season was his favorite: we'd watch him bring one home from a nest he'd found and eat it down to the last morsel. Like soft-shell crabs, the whole thing was edible at this stage. And yet when we left there were still as many rabbits visible at dusk as when we came.

It's easy to project human emotions on both cat and prey, but alas this is short-sighted, as both species have endured millions of years of mutual designing: prey becoming cleverer, quicker, and more prolific, predator developing quicker eyes, sharper claws, more flexible instincts, and fall-back strategies. Our Oliver had been declawed as a kitten; yet this did not seem to handicap his hunting skills, and in any case if there was a temporary shortage in "fast food" (as when it snowed hard, which he visibly hated), he had his cuteness and persistence to get a human slave to open a can or bag of crunchies.

But then I have a soft spot for murder animals. Even today I'm careful to round up spiders that show up in awkward spots (like my wife's shower) and gently remove them to the outside, reminding my helpmate of the millions of mosquitoes and other pests that they protect us from free of charge.

[Gonzai]

Actually, one of the best pets I ever had was a cat. She was loving and
playful, and not a hunter. She used to make me smile, and would actually
fetch things just like a dog. She liked to go outside and lay in the sun, and
although she was very independent, she was also very loving and friendly.

After she passed away, I went to the humane society and adopted another
cat. Like your cat sensei, she was declawed - actually all 4 paws. She was
the one that made me decide that I would never own another cat in my life.
She was an escape artist, and would get in and out of my house freely, though
I never could figure out how. She would catch shrews, and I can't tell you how
many times I would wake up in the middle of the night to them screeching.

She did not eat her prey. She tortured them. Every once in awhile she would
decide that I needed her dead prey, and she would come and put on my bed,
and I would get the pleasure of waking up to that at night. I could never
understand why she felt the need to do these kind of things, but apparently
it was in her nature.

For the most part, she was not friendly to humans, though, she loved my
pugs to death. When she did decide to come and get on your lap, she would
drool all over you. I am certain that she was drooling because she wanted
to somehow eat whoever she was with. She was not afraid of anything, and
would fight with racoons, possums, you name it. I would come home to dead
birds or rabbits on my doorstep. I was mortified most of the time.

The one thing that used to make me laugh about her was her attraction to the
dogs. I would take my dogs for a walk, and she would follow, albiet not close
to us, but you could see her in the shawdows following along. I would walk my
dogs for 1 to 2 miles sometimes, and she would follow every step of the way.

Funny thing is, once the grandkids came, she up and left. I never saw her after
the Kaila and Aurelia were born. I am sure that if she could have, she would have
found a way to torture them as well. She was truly evil. I checked with the humane
society, and they didn't have her, so I am not sure what happened to her. She was
around 18 when she disappeared. She was a blue point Himilayan and absolutely
beautiful, so I am guessing someone stole her. Otherwise I am guessing that one
of the prey animals that she was able to beat when she was younger got the best
of her.

[cutiebunny]

I got a good laugh at the link. And some days, I have to admit that I wouldn't mind if the cats wiped out some of us. There are far too many breeding arseholes around.

The only time I have ever lived with cats was for a couple years in college. I had one roommate who was a vet student, and in the apartment we shared there were two guinea pigs and five indoor cats. All of the cats were adopted from the local vet clinic, which meant several of them were feral cats or had simply been dropped off at the clinic by the owner and never picked up. One cat in particular was absolutely psycho. But then again, any creature that has black fur and has yellow eyes should be labeled as psycho. Every night, at approximately 2 am, the cat would run full speed into my closed bedroom door. You'd hear him tearing around the apartment as fast as he could and them WHAM! - he'd bang his head against the door. And then, he'd do it again. And again. And again. Every night for 2 years.

I kept wondering what the hell was wrong with this animal, not only from the "Why would any sane creature repeatedly subject themselves to pain?" issue, but the fact that the cat seemed to have no damage from the constant head raming. Maybe if you don't have a brain, it doesn't hurt to hit your head against a solid wall? I don't know

[ReiTheJelly]

When she did decide to come and get on your lap, she would
drool all over you. I am certain that she was drooling because she wanted
to somehow eat whoever she was with.