Damn you cat!

While spending an evening with friends, one of their little critters, Mimi did her usual patrol around the perimeter.

Very sweet cat, loves interacting with people. As much as she likes snuggling on someones lap and purring away contentedly, she also likes getting outside to prowl around her hunting grounds. They had tried to keep her indoors, but when she adopted them she had already been an outdoor cat for a year. Not much hope for keeping her inside at that point.

 On top of the neighbours shed.

After a while she came trotting back along the fence and oh look, she has something in her mouth.

Oh look, it’s a bird. Damn you cat!

She catches loads of mice, and kills them very quickly, which everyone is happy enough about. But she’ll also chase birds, and despite having a little jangly thing on her collar, manages to nab one occasionally. She seems to really enjoy batting them around like she’s playing badminton. The claws don’t seem to come out, and when we’ve rescued a bird, like now, there aren’t ever any bite wounds on it. Whether anything is damaged internally, don’t know, can’t tell. We suspect this one was just on the verge of flying, and that she actually grabbed it right out of a nest, or that had fallen to the ground in a fledgling attempt to fly.

She sat there for a while trying to figure out what had happened to her prey.

She looked mad and skulked off under the foliage. After a few minutes of sulking, she took off again in the direction she had come. Damn you cat!


Fortunately she returned empty mouthed. The bird we put up in the branches of a tree and hoped for the best. The next day it was gone, so here’s hoping it survived and flew off.


I know cats have a brain the size of a walnut and they’re just fulfilling their biological imperative, but damn you cat, leave the birds alone. Arguing that she should be kept inside is great and all, but the way she howls when she hasn’t been let out in a day seems to indicate that’s not so feasible. I had a cat that was an indoor cat when I was younger, and it worked cause he’d never been let outside. The Rubicon has already been crossed when it’s already lived outside full time for a year.

Mimi

I had encountered a very friendly grey kitten around my place a few times. She was abandoned by someone in the neighbourhood, and it didn’t take long before she adopted the neighbours.

Anand decided that her name should be Mimi.

An incredibly sweet, and friendly cat (perhaps just a tad too friendly) who is nonetheless a killing machine. Her ability to catch mice (and birds, and snakes, and chipmunks, and squirrels, and insects) is prodigious. Her mousing sprees are interrupted only by trying to befriend everyone that passes by.

She’s always incredibly happy to see me.

Great cat.

I put my pack down and immediately she clambers on and uses it as a perch to check out her turf.

Momo

The neighbours were out for a walk in the park and were approached by a tiny kitten. So small it was having difficulty walking through the grass. It came right up to them and made lots of mewling noises. They waited around for a while to see if there were any others, but he appeared to be the only one. It didn’t take long before they decided to take him home.

Since they already had a cat called Mimi, Anand decided this one should be called Momo.

The vet told them that he was about four weeks old, and from a feral litter. Surprised that no other members of the litter approached them, the vet said that often with a litter of barn cats, if there are a dozen, 11 will have nothing to do with people, and one will be downright friendly towards humans.

While it was perhaps really foolish of him to approach people so brazenly, on the other hand, it was perhaps an amazingly smart survival strategy. He would now go on to have a really good life. Certainly compared to any of his litter mates living along the cliff would have.

From a tiny little fuzzball that looked small in my hand, he’s grown into an amazing character. His fur is absolutely the softest I or anyone else has ever felt.

He’s got lots of it, and most impressive is his mane, a ruff that encircles his neck.

Funny thing though is that come spring, you can hold him down and without any protest, pull big tufts of hair from his coat. His most striking feature is a long tail that would make a lemur envious. It can move in about three directions at once.

He’s incredibly floppy, and will jump up on your chest, and without any preliminary prancing around or kneading, will just flop down and go instantly to sleep.

I’ve found him lying on the floor, on his back, front legs pointed in one direction, back legs in another, sound asleep.

Couple that with really neat markings, a very distinctive meow, and a really nice personality, you've got a winner cat.

Mimi hates him, but that’s because walking around the house she risks an ambush at every turn. He takes any and every opportunity to pounce on her. He’s not being mean or trying to establish who’s boss, he’s just desperate to play with someone.

Funniest thing is that he may have been a feral stray, but I suspect if you took him to a cat show, he’d win every award.