New owner with "hunting" problems

I have never had a cat before ... until I was adopted a few months ago by a young calico female. Now I am in love!

I had no idea cats were such intelligent, communicative and affectionate animals. She has become my best buddy. I garden a lot and she is right there with me, planting, watering ... she doesn't even care if she gets wet. We walk together and she "heels" almost like a trained dog would. She sleeps in my bed. Wakes me at approximately the right time evry morning. She is just about perfect except for one habit I guess I'll nver be able to change ... She is a super hunter. She kills birds every once in a while, even humming birds ...sad! She catches lizards all the time. I didn't even know we had many lizards in Southern Californis where I live but she (name, Molly) Molly brings two or three live, barely injured lizards into my house ever day. Some of them bite when you rescue them too. Yesterday she brought in two at one time. She had two feisty lizards in her mouth at once. I wonder how she did that?!

Molly was a semi outside cat when I "met" her. She spends the day in my yard, garden and patio and comes in the house with me when I return from work. It would be sad to inprison her in the house all the time so I guess until California runs out of lizards I'll have a problem; unless someone can advise me if there is a cure for Molly??


__________________
Mark

My kitten loves milk carton tops. He hunts them and plays fetch with them, far from the real thing huh?
My older adult male cat is always finding lizards in my house! He tears them up and puts them in my bed. Thanks for the gift kitty.
I feel bad to for the poor beasts, but thats the nature of cats, I guess.

you can buy her a breakaway collar with a bell. It will give some warning to the birds but the lizards don't stand a chance. For me, it is the saddest part of owning a cat the hunting of birds. A well-fed cat makes a good hunter, but a starving cat does not hunt, doesn't have the stamina for it. If I could figure out how to stop my ferals from hunting birds, I would be a happy cat owner. I try to watch and when I see them stalking, I send the dog out on a run to scare the birds away, she will not hurt my cats. I use a special command for this so she knows the game. I wish I had the magic answer, but I don't. The only way to stop a cat from killing anything is to keep it inside its entire life. Not an option at my farm.

I was told by a clerk at PetsMart that cats are so smart that if you bell them they just learn how to hunt birds without ringing the bell. Besides, what do birds know about bells anyway?! I think my cat climbs up the trees and gets the birds early in the morning or at dusk when they are not active. Bells wouldn't help.

They have an alarm device that goes off when the cat jumps or accelerates but I figure it would go off all the time and even I don't love birds that much!

The people on this board have probably been "cat people" for quite some time. As a novice I am constantly amazed by how fast she is and how far she can jump ...smart too. The other day I was playing "hide and seek" with Molly using a toy fishing pole with a mouse thing on it. I made the mouse appear to peek around a chair several times until Molly saw it. I expected her to sneek up and grab it sooner or later ... from the front. She sneeeked around through another room, down a hall, leaped over me and pouncd on the toy mouse from the back. She makes no noise either. It amazes me how she can jump up on my bed when I am in it and I can't even feel her vibration. I guess tigers are just bigger, much bigger versions of our "Kitties". i'm sure glad tigers don't live around here!

Mark, It's so nice to hear what you have to say about cats, now that you know them. My niece grew up hating cats. Then one found her. She couldn't love cats more, now! She kept telling her cat how wrong she was her whole life! When that cat died, she said she'd never go through that kind of pain again; she would have to have two. She was crying and so upset. Well, guess who had a litter of two Siamese kittens, one blue, one sealpoint? Of course they now live with my niece, and argue over who gets to sleep under the covers! The male actually plays "fetch" with a ball.

Welcome Mark!

Always nice to see a newly converted cat lover. Mine amaze me all the time. Although they are both indoors, they do have access to a screened porch, and any lizard who makes his way in wishes he didn't. My older cat, Squirt, used to be indoor/outdoor. He brought me home a baby bird once. Glad it was just once. It was kind of sad. We are really glad that you have found our site and hope to see you posting often.

Hi Mark...welcome to the world of catcompanionship!

My Smokey goes after baby bunnies, baby squirrels, chipmonks, feild mice, and once got a bird...also got a bat once! Amazing!

He doesn't seem to go after birds much anymore...I even have a feeder on the deck...he actually chases the adult squirrels away fromt the feeder, but doesn't go after any other animal on the deck. Now, if it's off the deck, it's fair game. He is considerate of my wants, occasionally. I've told him about four or five years ago that he is a good boy, a wonderful and skilled hunter, however, I would appreciate NOT finding corpses in my yard. I haven't found any since. Occasionally...he will prance past me with his latest 'victim' just to let me know that he is still a skilled hunter...in case I've forgotten!

I always prasie him for his "prize"...and remind him to hide it somewhere other than the yard!

You have it easy, Puffkitty. My little Darlin' brings the victims into the house and scares the Heck out of my wife. I mean these lizards she brings in bite ...hard. They have a beak, no teeth I can see but they draw blood. She doesn't eat them, kill or hurt them ..she brings them in to play with and then gets tired of the game or the lizard escapes under the furniture. Then when you are watching TV and least expecting it ... Lizards come out running (or biting!)

Now birds she tears up and eats. My wife's problem there is the blood and feathers. This is a smallish, cute little female too but what a hunter she is. And she hunts full time. She gets up in the morning, goes out and starts patroling my very landscaped patio\\garden. Looks so cute but she is so "mean" .. being anthropomorphic.

ROTFL! I know it's not funny when it happens, but just imagining lizards coming shooting out from under the couch scaring the life out of someone - well, the visual is amusing! My friend's cat brought a small toad in to play with one time and I have never seen a human jump as high or far as she did. Poor Dice (the cat) almost forgot to grab his toad as he quickly exited the room. Now we can laugh about it, but she didn't think it was funny at all then!

I think that cats constantly amaze all of us who are owned by them. They truly are amazing creatures. You know, I haven't seen the movie Cats and Dogs, but I firmly believe that if cats decided to take over the world there isn't anything that could stop them!

I have 6 cats and a pet Cockatiel named Willie, my cats have never tried to to hurt Willie which amazed me. But when my cat Precious, atrue huntress who chases the lid of a milk jug around my house until there is nothing left of it, began to to sit and watch Willie. I was cautious at first afraid of walking in and findin little white feathers littering the carpet. But then she began to lay down beside his cage. And now when any of my other felines approach Willie she quickly begins to defend him. She even knows when he is out of food and continues to pester me until I fill his feeder! This totally blows me away. Cats are very mysterious creatures.

What about letting her out only when you are out, too? She sounds like such a daddy's girl that she wouldn't be off hunting when there's the opportunity to do a little gardening with daddy.

Cats are hunters, so there's nothing you can do to "break" her of it, all you can do is decrease her opportunities!

My son has a picture of his young kitten, Jake, stalking a deer! He lives near a wooded area, and a deer came into the yard. (probably looking for someone's prize tulips or gladioli) Jake, ever the optimist, hugged the ground, poised to leap and my son took the picture. I wonder what he (Jake) intended to do with it!!

Cats ARE amazing. As I am a science\
ature fan .. not a pro but all I watch on TV is the Science Channel, Discover, etc. I have read a lot recently on cat capabilities. Did you know they can move their paws 15 times faster than we can move our arms? I read one comment somewhere that said "good thing cats are small. if they were the size of say large dogs, there would not be too many people arouind!"