Kdemars said:
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On a different note - we have a wild kitty that is an excellent hunter and I think he is feeding us because we feed him - or he is protecting us. He leaves birds, squirrels and moles for us regularly. The funniest thing about it is that he will stand by it and make us acknowledge his "kill" before playing or eating...
boy, this is something right out of the Discovery Channel or Wild Kingdom. You should have your video camera ready to capture some of this stuff.
we used to have a stray that hung out in our backyard, Charlie. Our living room looks out on the backyard with a big sliding glass picture window. Charlie was a really wise together streetsmart cat, he was very cool and hip, and was the leader of the gang of strays that came around.
One time our always indoor and not at all streetwise cat Fluffy got out and got lost, she was gone all night, we made posters and put them up on the posts around the neighborhood and we went door to door, we cried and prayed, but it didn't seem likely that we'd ever see Fluffy again. but the second night, we looked out the window to the backyard and saw Charlie eating out of the bowl and there was Fluffy with him, he had brought her back.
Anyway, so a couple of times, Charlie was out in the backyard and we noticed he was doing something out there and we saw that he had a mouse and he was playing with it, and it was terrified, he played with it for maybe an hour. He'd capture it, bat it around with his feet, pick it up in his mouth, then let it go, it would run, and he would just watch it run off to the ivy, but then he'd get up and go after it and capture it again. It squealed. It was pretty gruesome. I don't remember him ever actually eating it or tearing it up, it was just psychological torture. I had heard of "playing cat and mouse' before but until then, i never knew exactly what it was.
So far Zack hasn't gotten any nasty things in his mouth. Knock on wood.