Surprising Cat Behaviour

[mustard-tree]

My cat surprised me yesterday.

I was on the sofa when I saw her coming towards me with something in her mouth.

She then jumped on to the sofa and plonked a gerbil on my lap.

I then noticed that I hadn`t closed the gerbil cage door after feeding them, and one must have climbed out.

The gerbil was totally unharmed, she must have carried it as she would a kitten.

She shows no animosity towards the budgie either, and the budgie shows no fear of her.

She will sit beside the birdcage and Billy just chirps at her

[captainbovine]

oh what a nice puddy cat...she must have a strong mother instinct to bring you the gerbil, I wonder what the gerbil thought of that!!!

[ilove2patch]

My dog did a similar thing with a baby gull. 

[2017clearout]

That's very surprising!  My youngest brother (now 27) still bears the scars of when the cat ate his hamsters - he went in to feed them and found the cat (the world's laziest British blue - probably the only time in his life he ate rodent...) chowing down on one so he ran for my father (I don't know why he didn't get the cat out of the room) and by the time Dad came down, the cat was eating the other one.  

Perhaps she'd got the hang of it being a pet, and seeing that you paid attention to it, realised it was a pet too?  Clever puss!  My parents' cats bring them lots of pets, in various states from completely alive to entrails left only, but they've never returned anything that had done a runner!  

[fishpieface]

Ahh Mustard Tree, what a lovely pussyc at you have.  Our ole Paws Cat used to

sit in the run with the rabbit and guinea-pigs, he never tried to harm them, even

spent the night in their cage once when we locked him in by mistake.  We were

terrified of what we might find when we discovered he was in there, but all

were safe and happy.

[chips-and-brown-gravy]

Not suprising to me as my Abby has never to my knowledge hurt anything.

He's brought in Magpies, Jackdaws, a **bleep** Pheasant, Rabbits ranging from baby to a full grown buck, the usual mice and voles and last summer at least 6 Hawk Moth catapillars - all completely unharmed, he's a very gentle boy.

The only time he came in with something dead was one very cold winter morning and he'd found a blue tit, very stiff and rock hard.

[**roofie**]

My Mum's cat is the same. Very rarely catches anything to be honest, but if she does, it's never killed, they always get put outside to carry on their little lives.

[rose2008-2008]

What a lovely cat to bring the Gerbil unharmed!!!!!!!. I love Gerbils!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

CHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Your cats GORGEOUS,,,is she (i suspect from her name) an Abbysinnian?. Those cats are Beautiful. I have always wanted one.

[chips-and-brown-gravy]

Thank you Rose, his name is Louis and yes he's an Abbysinnian.  He's an absolute darling and the second Abby I've had. They have a fantastic nature, and something a friend said to me about his girlfriends Abby was very true - "when an Abby loves you - they REALLY love you".

He came to me as a rescue cat at the age of 6, we've had him 5 years now and he's a babe!

[rose2008-2008]

Awwwwww Bless,,,oh That picture is wonderful. I love their colour and eyes!!!.

[2017clearout]

What a beautiful boy!

I'm surprised to read that most people's cats bring things in and don't kill them, though - one of the cats brings things through the cat flap (singing loudly as she does so) but often loses interest in them, and the other like to leave the dead things she dosn't eat under my parents' bed or at the bottom of the stairs.  Perhaps it's mainly a female cat thing, where they are used to catching things for their kittens?

Our cats tend to bring in the larger things and release them, but the smaller things either get devoured (by one of the cats, who eats things tail first) or abandoned: we've got used to quickly removing whatever it is, as often the voles and shrews etc will play dead and then have a miraculous resurrection down the line - they now get taken out of the house, across the lane and set free into the field opposite, on the grounds that the cats seem mainly to hunt in the garden: I'm not sure it saves too many lives, though, as I should think the trauma doesn't help them, and we've noticed the kites round us starting to pick off small mammals, even though the books say they only eat carrion 😞

[captainbovine]

one of my work mates cat brought in a live mouse at 3am! it got free and ran behind the wardrobe, so they were all trying to move furniture to get the mouse....finally they caught it. It's a right tinker that cat of theirs.

[2017clearout]

I love the middle of the night safari adventures!

I used to live overseas, and the cat we had then used to delight in delivering live geckoes to the pillow - presumably in case we fancied a midnight snack...

[ed_blackadder_1]

Our late cat brought in a mrs blackbird, through the cat flap when we were out, she must have dropped it as when we came in it flew out the door, it was injured and sadly didn't get very far.  We had bird poop everywhere things knocked off the shelf, Cat wasn't in our good books for a while.

[jillyjingle]

Someone I used to work with lived in the countryside & she was always going home to find baby bunnies hopping around her lounge thanks to her cat

[captainbovine]