Our cat is coming up 2 years old so, while she is fully grown, she still displays many kitten characteristics. She constantly demands
affention (affection + attention) from her human parents but is very selective about the company she keeps; it mostly consists of her two human parents plus the occasional tolerance of another, so long as they are not a
little person. She is also incredibly vocal. Every action or movement is accompanied by a meow of some sort. She will even throw some random meows in the middle of contented purring. We can sometimes work out what she wants, but often don't think even she knows.
When she was younger, our feline princess went through a phase of bringing inanimate gifts inside. Her particular specialty was leaves - big, dry ones. No matter how may leaves I picked up from the living room floor, more would mysteriously appear. We'd sometimes watch her playing around in a neighbour's tree, then suddenly sprint along the fence and across the back yard, quickly negotiating the cat flap and racing inside to deposit her treasure on the floor of the lounge ... punctuated by a triumphant meow. The gift we laughed most about was a deflated black balloon on a string but, all up, her habit was pretty tame.
At 6:15 am today, we heard a very different type of meow as our cat came through the house and made her way into our bedroom. She woke us up with a loud yowl of sorts, almost like she was injured, but definitely requiring our immediate attention. (She still doesn't realise that weekends are not work days and that we humans have a thing we enjoy called 'sleep ins'.) We turned the light on and watched her proudly deposit her gift on the floor: a live
weta with a chunk or two missing. Not a huge one - only about 5 cm long - but definitely not required, especially inside and at that time on a Sunday morning. Gee, thanks. The weta was swiftly confiscated in a towel and relocated out the front door, leaving a bewildered (but still meowing) pussy cat to stare at the empty space where moments before she had delivered her special gift.
I live in dread of the day she tries to trump my best friend's cat, who deposited a live possum on their bed. It took my friend, her husband and their 2 children 10 minutes to persuade it to move into the lounge before they finally managed to push it out the ranch slider door. I've heard stories from others whose cats have brought in rats (both tame and wild) and various reptiles. Don't even talk to me about birds!
Do your pets bring you treasures? What's the best (or worst) gift you've received from your pet?
1 comment:
That is so cute really....actually a bit gross.
Our old family cat used to catch the biggest bush rats (and she was a tiny cat). You would walk down the stairs in the dark in the morning for a shower and stand in rat bits. I got so used to it and I would just think “I wonder which bit that was”.
Belle has taken to trotting around the house carrying her scrunchy. It's hilarious. She goes searching for them in their toy bin. Yes. Our cats have a toy bin.
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