My James killed a mouse last night (poor thing). James was very proud of himself and waggled and purred all over the place (after tossing the mouse up in the air a few times to show off and then bringing him to me). I thanked him very much for the addition to our pantry and then scooped up the poor mousie and tossed him/her outside (it was the middle of the night--otherwise I would have buried him/her).

We live in an apartment, so this rarely happens (happened last year--that time I found a mouse in my shoe in the morning! I didn't like that surprise very much). I suppose it is the time of year, though. The mice are trying to move to warmer places. I just hope the rest have better luck then that little one did!

My cat just expects presents. :)

My cats don't go outside, so the "presents" I get from them are deposited in the litter box. :p

Yes, I get a vole every now and then. Geeze.

When I was a kid, we had a Burmese cat who brought all kind of "presents" into the house through a cat door. Several survived - we found a baby bunny behind the couch and a squirrel up on the draperies. But a couple didn't make it - the cat would leave the parts he didn't want to eat on the kitchen mat. Uck! That's when the cat door was permanently locked.

Nah- she has a bell and doesn't catch anything. She brought a long dead bird to the step once and we told her off to tell her those aren't the kind's of presents we're interested in.

I've never met an outdoor cat that didnt kill something and bring it home.

My kitties are INDOORS, though!! And I still get gifts. Sigh.

They are natural hunters..indoors or out.

We've been brought snakes, birds, mice, lizards, rancid meat out of the dumpster, and we got a frog once.

Yes, occasionally. My two older male cats have pretty much stopped hunting now, but Ruby, our 18-month old girl, has just begun. She started with worms, graduated to moths, and a few weeks ago caught her first mouse. Since then she's caught several - one she dropped and we managed to catch and release it, but the others she's killed. It's pretty grim :( .

We've realised that if we shout at her she'll at least take whatever-it-is back outside (rather than just drop it, like the boys used to) so she just gets chased out now if she brings anything in.

1 a day with the cat I grew up with. Always moles.

...It was like genocide.

My cat Ditty is always bringing home mice and small birds which I set free if they are still alive. My cat Gizmo has been watching him hunt for about 5 years now but has never hunted himself. One day he came running in the door meowing in a way I had never heard before so I was worried he was hurt. He came up to me and dropped something on the book I was reading and looked up at me with mud all over his face. It turned out he brought me a live earthworm. The first and only thing he has ever caught.

Nope. Not even twist ties. :(

They've found and killed mice in the house on two occassions, but have never brought them to me... I just stumbled across their dead bodies whereever they had left them. :/

You have to remember. The relationship with cats and humans goes back thousands of years. The reason we first became companions with them is because of their killer instinct at eliminating disease infested rodentia. Your cat is bringing these to you as a sign of respect, both as a show of successful servitude and as food sharing (mostly when they leave parts).
Your cat also (especially female cats) may see you as an inept kitten which must be taught how to use your killer instinct. Thus, she brings in her dead prey, this is to show you (the inept kitten) what to eat. Then she will bring in the wounded prey and kill it in front of you. This is to teach you how to use your natural killer instinct with what you eat. Lastly, she will bring in a live or weakend prey and deposit it. This is for you to exercise your killer instinct on to prove you have learned.
For those living in rural or park areas, going "hunting" with your cat off leash in a wooded area or field will help reduce the instances of "sacrifices" and "presents". By hunting with your cat in her hunting grounds she won't feel as great of a need to bring prey, though some food sharing may still occur on occasion.

RR.

I get crumpled up balls of paper. That's about it!

Mine is an indoor cat so she only makes funny noises at pidgeons from the terrace. She doesn't realise they're almost as big as her! :)

wow this is an old thread. meh.
my cat is indoor and overweight so we figured he wouldn't know how to catch something or what to do with it if he did. sometimes we let him out on the front lawn to eat grass but he sits right in front of the steps and chows down, never interested in venturing off the lawn. the other day my hubby was taking the dog out for a pee and the cat snuck out to munch grass and a young-ish bird was just standing on the lawn and didn't try to fly away so the cat scooped it up and took it to hubby. it was alive and not hurt, he was just holding it. so he he scolded him and shooed him back in the house, he dropped the bird and took off inside. i guess he didn't latch the door right cause he snuck back out and grabbed the same stupid bird again. again hubby scolded him and shooed him inside and then tried to get the bird to fly off. i guess it was just stunned and wouldn't fly, eventually he got it up onto the hood of the car where it could rest and after a few minutes it flew away on its own.

anyway he told me about it after and i was just so impressed that the cat could actually catch anything, but also very glad that he didn't kill it :sweat: he's put the run on a couple of squirrels lately too so i think he might be getting a little braver outside. we're going to start using his harness again, it had gone missing but i found it the other day, that should put an end to it.

My cats bring me cat toys when I'm asleep, and my roomie tells me that if I'm away for the night they get delievered to him. Ducky has put them in my purse a few times too, I'll get to work or go to pay for something and pull out a stuffed mouse, lol.

My cat brought me a dead mouse from the yard a couple of weeks ago and was standing at the door with it in her mouth.

"Sweetie, I am glad you caught a mouse, but you have to leave it outside."
She actually drops the mouse reluctantly and comes through the door. I am just amazed and impressed.
She turns around and stares out the door at her mouse, so I let her out. She picks the mouse back up and tries to bring it in.
I say more sternly, "Leave it outside."
She drops it and comes back in. I just walk away feeling bad that I did not accept her "present".

Cats are so amazing sometimes.

When I lived in West Africa, a cat lived with us. And he would bring indoors ENORMOUS (and I mean ENORMOUS) lizards. Most had half their intestines hanging out, some were still half alive, and these we would have to "finish off" in order to end their suffering.

Once the cat even dropped a half-dead lizard with his intestines hanging out into our toilet.

These was not the nicest presents to receive. Could definitely have done without.

My old roommates and I had three cats. Tiger, Lovey, and Fluffy. Tiger was Lovey's mom, and Fluffy was the old man of the house at 18 years old. He couldn't be bothered to hunt.

We had several hamsters that turned out to be Houdini Hammies...however not a single one of them was ever killed by any of the cats. You'd find them all snuggled up together in a a big ball of cat and hammie fur on the couch. We even caught one bellied up to the food bowls with the three of them one night! Not to mention that Tiger treated my rats like kittens. I guess they thought "They feed it...they feed us...if we kill it...big trouble"!

However...if it was a free range wild mouse...it was toast. Tiger used to sit by the heating vents and wait for them to venture out...and then deposit them on the stairs or right in front of your door first thing in the morning.

Lovey on the other had was an armchair hunter. You could tell how close the birds were to the house by how fast his tail was wagging. And his bird call..."prre-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ow...pre-ee-ee-ow"

My cat knows I'm vegetarian. She doesn't bring me anything dead...

She brings me GARDEN GLOVES!

I kid you not. I have 17 gloves now, all shapes and sizes that she's proudly brought to the back step. (I seriously think I may take a picture of our 'collection'!)
Sometimes it's one and a few hours later she brings the mate so I have matched pairs...

It's CRAZY! I've asked my closest neighbors and they haven't lost any gloves, but this kitty roams far and wide, and we border several developments - there's no telling where she's getting the things!

At least I can do lots of gardening without getting my hands dirty - heh!

But that's not all...

She also brings big (bigger than her!!) yellow clumps of that puffy insulation - which freaks me out because it's not good for her to carry that stuff around in her mouth! Sometimes several large clumps in one night. (Always at night.)
And again, I have done everything I can think of to find the source but it's not our house or any of the near-by neighbors...

You'd THINK after three years of this, SOMEONE would notice!!

Don't tell me to keep her in - she came and "adopted" us... keeping her indoors would make her absolutely MISERABLE.

Just can't take the carnivore out of them.
I tend to think that a carnivore or omnivore's mind works differently then ours. Like when they decide to kill a smaller animal, it's like if we saw a tree with ripe fruit. We'd reach over the pick the fruit.

Best you can do is give them a bell and keep them inside during peak activity of other animals, early morning for birds.

One of my cats used to catch critters, but now he has a bell so he can't.

My other cat also has a bell, and she catches june bugs and maple leaves! :p

My cat knows I'm vegetarian. She doesn't bring me anything dead...

She brings me GARDEN GLOVES!

I kid you not. I have 17 gloves now, all shapes and sizes that she's proudly brought to the back step. (I seriously think I may take a picture of our 'collection'!)
Sometimes it's one and a few hours later she brings the mate so I have matched pairs...



You have reminded me of my favorite childhood book, Slinky Malinky.

That's really funny though! :lol: