What do you do when one of your cats is a killing machine and its getting out of control?
One of my cats, Isis, has always been a champion mouser. Problem is, she likes to skin them alive, in the bathroom. We actually had to close off the dog door because we were waking up to a bloody massacre every morning. She has more recently moved on to birds, so I have purposely never put out any bird houses or bird seed, which I really want to do. Well, now she has added rabbits to her list of fun animals to torture. Mind you, this cat is declawed. This morning I woke up to a rabbit gutted in the middle of the path to the garden. Half of its face had been eaten off. As soon as I recover from finding this, Isis comes around the corner with a live sparrow in her mouth. I managed to rescue the little bird and tuck it up into a tree to *hopefully* get over its shock. This afternoon she has attempted to bring 2 other birds into the house. I have been finding rabbits guts around the yard all week, and have found more than one rabbit with no head at all.
I have thought about making her stay indoors, but if she wants outside, she sits by the door and meows so frickin loud that no one in the house can sleep, or even hear themselves think for that matter. This cat will never be happy as an indoor cat.
So, what do I do? Do I continue to tolerate it, because I am the one that welcomed her into my home to begin with? Am I failing her if I find her a new home? Is she worth the lives of all the animals she is killing, purely for sport? What would you do?
Get her a collar with a bell on it. Seriously, it helps. Won't stop everything, but at least it gives the other animals some warning that she is coming.
ReplyDeleteI never even thought to try a bell. That is EXACTLY what I am going to do!
ReplyDeleteWow Jamie, that is pretty bad. A friend of mine took 1 part lemon juice and put it in a water bottle and would squirt the cat when it would try to come in with a :play thing".
ReplyDeleteYou can also get sprays for cats that go overboard.
The only problem I can see.. are the rabbits.. pets?
The rabbits are wild snowshoe hare. It just bothers me that she is killing them just for fun. If she was eating them I wouldn't mind so much. I just bought both cats collars with bells this morning. We will see if that solves the problem!
ReplyDeleteok, minus the name, the rabbit, and the declawed part, I could have written this post myself. Sassy cat likes to eat the heads off. All I ever find are the little butts/tails. Fortunately, she doesn't bring them in the house. Sassy was also born and raised in the wild and would never be happy indoors. I also would love to have bird (and bat) thingys outside but don't want to lure them in just to be killed. I rarely see evidence of birds, but often find a bunch of tail feathers. I have no answers but can relate! Sassy is nine, so we would never give her up at this point. SHE is showing evidence of slowing down, but the hunting has not.
ReplyDeleteOh, just read the comments on the bells. Just be careful. When we get the breakaway type collar with bells, Sassy will run through the woods and they'll usually be gone in a day or two (and they're like $10 each!). The ones that stretch worked much better. She wouldn't lose them as much, but once, she was gone for a couple of days (which happens sometimes) and when she got back, the collar had gotten hooked under her front arm and had rubbed an area under the arm (like her armpit) raw. She was really hurt and this racked up a serious vet bill.
ReplyDeleteI got the stretchy type and put them on somewhat loosely. They seem to be working so far, although the ringing is making Calypso a bit neurotic, I think.
ReplyDelete