When cats become serial killers

Earlier this week there was a news segment on a study conducted by a university.  They attached little cameras onto domestic cats and tracked their activities.  The study said, basically, that cats are serial killers who kill just for the fun of it.  

I live in the country and depend on my cats to do just that.  If a mouse gets into my house, I expect them to dispatch the rodent posthaste.  That is why I gave them their own eBay account, as payment for services rendered.  

I would have thought Schooner would be the mouser, because he loves to play with toys, but both times (that I know about) there has been a rodent incident, it has been Hobiecat, not Schooner, who has committed the justifiable homicide.

I wondered why.  Hobie would rather sleep, while Schooner would rather play fetch with me, bat cat balls around in the middle of the night, drag toys all over the house, and hide them behind the piano.  So why doesn't he want to participate in the hunt and kill game most cats enjoy?

I watched him for a while and I think he may not be stealthy enough to hunt.  He thinks he is hidden when he isn't.  

Schooner thinks he is completely hidden

Schooner, wondering if I'll ever find him

The last couple of days I've been working with Schooner, trying to teach him how to hunt, so he can share in the fun of murdering helpless rodents.  After all, Hobie might want to take a vacation some day.  After a full day of training, with charts and grafts and flip charts and a pop quiz or two, Schooner was exhausted.

Schooner taking a rest on the sofa

 But now I'm beginning to think I made a mistake when I taught him how to hunt.

Schooner  (and why do I feel like prey?)

Schooner on Hayden Island, OR

Just off I-5, a sleepy community of houseboats, yachts, and sailboats rocks against the shore of Hayden Island between the Columbia River and the North Portland Harbor channel.  There are two fabulous cafes on the island.  One is the Island Cafe, floating on the dock along the channel.  On a hot summer evening, as you eat a shrimp salad, you can watch all sorts of pleasure boats float past; some even pulling up to the cafe, tossing a line, and clambering onto the dock for a meal.

The other, Hidden Bay Cafe, is not as crowded, and overlooks the marina tucked into a small bay along the Columbia River.  I met my daughter there after work a few days ago.  While I waited, I watched several sailboats out on the Columbia.  Is it me, or is one of them sailing backwards?

Used to the pleasure craft seen on the south side of the island along the harbor channel, I forgot the north side would provide a view of the heavy traffic along the Columbia.  While filming a sailboat, a Tidewater barge completely upstaged it.

I have a particular fondness for Hayden Island because a group of islanders were doing an annual clean-up along the shorelines when they came across a little kitten and his mom, half starved, and cowering in the brush.  They rescued them, found a home for the mom, and posted a picture of the baby at a Hayden Island fundraiser I attended.

Who can resist a pwecious widdle kiddy in need of a home?

Schooner as a baby

Schooner

That is how Schooner came to share the house with me.

Cat or Rats?

The government is like a cat. Sure it can be silky and cuddly and its purr can lull you into a feeling of contentment, but, like a cat, it can purr one moment, and draw blood the next.

The New Year is here, and I imagine the government is going to want us to pay taxes all over again. What did they do with this year’s taxes? Did they play with the dollars until the life drained out of them, or did they buy every cat toy on eBay, for double the price, and have them sent FedEx Overnight? I’ll bet the government is going to start whining about taxes, just like it did last year. And, like a cat, they’ll keep meowing, and meowing until you give them what they want. If you don’t, you’re likely to feel the sting of claws raking down your legs.

You may think it is worth it, that they appreciate you, and want to use the money to make your life better, but my cat just let me know I’m chopped liver. He got a new cat tower, and he no longer wants to snuggle into the bed I have for him in whatever room I’m in. He wants to sleep on the top level of the tower and to heck with which room I’m in. It is the same with the government. They’re in the top level of their towers and do they care if you are living in your car, or a cardboard box? Well, they might care about the cardboard box—cats love cardboard boxes—but they don’t care about you. All they care about is the food bin or your wallet.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the government actually worked for the money, but they spend their entire day, eating, sleeping, bickering and spitting at each other, playing with toys, making a mess, and expecting you to clean it up. They overindulge, eat forbidden things, hawk it up, and expect you to continue on as if you don’t know they’ll do it again the moment your back is turned. Local government is just as bad as the feds. Rest assured they will want you to pay your property taxes, sales tax, and local income tax all over again, even though you paid them last year. Have they never heard of recycling?

And don’t think that a gray cat is better than an orange cat, a tabby is better than a calico, or a Siamese is better than a Persian. In the long run, they all want the same thing. They want you to support them in the style they’ve decided they deserve. You can try to limit their intake, but the moment you leave the room they are up on that counter, pilfering from your dinner platter.

So why do we put up with it, with them? The rats. R-A-T-S. They have us convinced rats carry various plagues and without government/cats, all of mankind would succumb. Nations would collapse. We’d all be reduced to pirating passing ships.

Admittedly, they eat the occasional spider, and protect us by shooting down incoming birds. Once in a while they refund a stimulus shrew, or give us a gopher. There is no denying they provide that sense of well-being only the vibrating purr can offer. And on that rare occasion, their antics even provide a laugh.

Might as well dust off those 1040 forms.

Happy New Year.

Concentrating on Writing

Some days I find it difficult to focus on my writing.

Hobiecat, purring