The Cat vs The Rat.

This little story takes place at the Brunterm Container Pier in St John NB. The manager of the place was named Rod and his secretary was my next door neighbor Doreen.

Now Rod had more or less adopted a little Maltese feral who lived in the main warehouse and offices. She was a tiny little thing that weighed maybe 7 pounds at the most. But she had the heart of a lion.
Every day she would catch a mouse or rat and bring it to Rod for inspection and praise. He would fuss over her and quietly drop the evidence in the harbour.

Now this particular day Rod was at a meeting elsewhere. We drivers were in the yard loading freight containers for shipping. Suddenly we were startled to hear blood-curdling screams coming from the office. Madly we tore in to find Doreen standing on her desk screaming at the top of her voice. On the floor was a HUGE dead RAT. Evidently the cat(sorry,don't remember her name)had done this rat in and had laboriously dragged it up 2 flights of stairs to the office. Since Rod was not there she proceeded to drag the great carcass over to where Doreen was busily working away AND DRAPED IT ACROSS DOREEN'S FOOT.

We dragged the rat away and one of the guys weighed it...huge thing.
Finally we got Doreen calmed down enough and when Rod arrived we sent her home.

Poor cat was hiding under Rod's desk with eyes as big as saucers. After things settled she stalked off to her domains but not before giving Doreen a very disgusted look and sniff. She trod out of the office with a highly offended mien...tail stuck straight up and grumbling under her breath.

Needless to say there was little work accomplished the rest of that day. You can't operate heavy machinery with the giggles.

As a further note; previously I saw this rat being pursued by several husky longshoremen armed with clubs and shovels..in a few minutes we heard a yell and the men came tearing back..hotly pursued by the RAT!!!

Great story Kittyfoot! Thanks for sharing.

This weekend I was talking to my dad about the cats they had on the farm when he was growing up. There was one cat who was the matriarch of the entire farm. She lived to be 18 years old! Anyway, this cat (I'm blanking on her name right now) was a great hunter. One day she dragged a jack rabbit home from the fields. It amazes me what cats can do!

KittyFoot; I enjoyed that rat tale. Here in the city we have some disgustingly huge rats, but we also have even larger opossums; that have come into the city to feed out of dumpsters, etc. As you know, opossums resemble rats (long snout and rat-like tail). I am always afraid that one of my ferals will mistakenly attack an opossom as if it were a rat. They can be ferocious fighters and also frequently carry rabies! I have had full grown German Shepherds kill opossums in the backyard, but they were always considerably larger than said opossum.

Kittyfoot, I LOVED your tale. Once I came home from working second shift. I went into the living room to put my feet up for a few minutes before retiring. I heard a growling sound coming from the kitchen. As I headed to the kitchen I saw my (then) only cat Rusty coming toward me with a very large,very dead mouse in his mouth. He was walking with his tail straight out behind him and his head held down in a hunting posture. Being an indoor kitty owner I was not used to having deceased gifts brought in. I told myself, he`s only doing what comes naturally...but then I did what came naturally.....RAN into the bedroom. Not far behind me, still walking in the hunting stance was Rusty. Well, I then ran into the kitchen. My fear was that he would have this mouse for a snack and make a horrible bloody mess. Once I had gathered my wits(or so I thought) I decided to get a plastic baag, put my hand inside it ....rip the mouse out of his mouth, turn the bag inside out and throw away the disgusting thing.Into the kitchen comes Rusty, right toward me. I thrust out my baagged hand ready to grab....but before I could get to the dead mouse....he dropped it in my hand. It was then and only then that I realized that this was no mere dead mouse,but a treasured gift that he had probably been saving all night for me. As soon as he dropped it in my (bagged) hand the growl turned to a purr, his head went up and his tail was a straight as a rod. My beautiful Rusty had given me a gift. I praised him accordingly and when he left the room took it out to the trash.

Great story! My two cats are no hunters, though they did manage to kill a bird that somehow got into our apartment while we were living in Tel Aviv (we don't know which one was the killer - we woke up in the morning to find a headless bird carcass).

When I was a kid we had a beautiful while cat called Blanche who was a mighty hunter. She caught all sorts of birds and mice (never a rat though, I'm not sure there were any where we lived). She never hurt the mice, she would just catch them and bring them alive and unharmed (though totally shocked) to me!

I think she wanted me to practice my hunting skills like a momma cat brings live prey for her kittens. She used to bring them in the middle of the night and cry loudly by my bedroom door until I got up... I got very good at catching mice with my bare hands and releasing them outside

I won't forget the night when she did it four times! I woke up four times to catch a little mice and take it outside. To this day I'm not sure if they were 4 differnt mice, or if she kept catching the same poor little mouse I was releasing outside

A funny story Kittyfoot!! It gave me a laugh and I remembered that my Eric once caught a sparrow. One moment he was lying on the window sill and the next one he was raving into the house, little gray tiger as he is with a sparrow in his mouth!!!!
I panicked of course and saved the poor little creature and afterwards I had to explain for an hour how proud I was of eric for being such a great hunter because he was giving me those disdainful looks for having taken the bird away. :LOL:

Glad you folks enjoyed it...maybe someday i'll tell you about ALMOST meeting Prince Charles and his helicopter.

:LOL:

Thank you for sharing KF.. was an excellent story. Cats are sooo agile and swift. All that and graceful too. I'm more like a dog.. clumsy and sloppy. Oh, to be like a cat!!

Kittyfoot, you tell the best stories!

My kitties love to catch mice. They bring them in alive and proceed to torture them to death. They are playing but I cannot stand it. I always have to catch the mouse and take it outside. This is extremely hard for me so if anyone else is around they have to do it.

I don't actually think these are mice. They are little black mouse looking things that burrough into the ground like a gopher. They are really quite cute and I can't stand to see the kitties corner it and then bat at it. I have to get the broom and dust pan and corner it and sweep it onto the pan and hold it down with the broom and carry it outside. The kitties (2 of them) follow me and I have to keep chasing them away (which does no good).

One day Buttons brought in a little black snake. It was a garden (garter?) snake and she presented it to me with a very victorious look. I have heart trouble and I thought this was going to be the big one. When I finished screaming, (which caused Buttons to look at me disgustedly for my lack of appreciation) I got the old broom and dust pan and did my thing.

They have a least taught me that I too can catch a mouse, lol.

Patches has brought in a bird also, but thank goodness hubby was home.

Kittyfoot...I loved your story! And Tiggeytoes your story was so sweet!!!!!!!! I love all these cute stories!!!!!!!!