Cat Pictures Are So Cute

[Lily Sawyer]

And, just so you know, you are allowed to feed your mousers. My MIL would get super mad at me for feeding the barn cats because she said they wouldn't mouse if they were fed. Well, wrong....When I fed the barn cats, their kills increased! because they wanted to show me what they got. Always. Gophers, birds, mice -- they would lay these at my feet (especially the sick one who I helped). If they could have held sticks, they would have been fanning me.

This is SO true about the cats I grew up with and Mao! They loved to show off the new "toy" if it was alive, and bring the carcass to us to show us some appreciation if it was dead. Mao gifted me all the time with rats, mice, lizards, birds, grasshoppers and crickets. And he'd eat the mice and bugs! That was one demanding cat when it came to food - very vocal about dinnertime, and he'd still eat some of his kills. (Another ewwwwwwwwwwww.) The Siamese pair I grew up with used to divebomb my parents from their headboard if my parents weren't out of bed - they wanted their food and they wanted it pronto in the morning.

[Lily Sawyer]

Good kitty story from one of my best friends:

When Mrs. Walton pulled into the driveway, she noticed an animal lying in the lawn upslope that abutted the road. She had a bad feeling as she brought a box with her outside to collect the animal. She was crying, and the lineman who was at the top of the telephone pole making repairs even told her how sorry he was as she put the cat into the box and carried it back to the house.

She then called her husband, still crying: how are we going to tell the kids? -As she was still on the phone, in sauntered the family cat - a dead ringer (sorry; I couldn't resist) for the cat in the box. She just about dropped the phone, and told her husband she had to go.

She then proceeded to take the box with the dead cat, who wasn't the family pet after all, back outside to the ditch, and put the dead cat back on the edge of the lawn! This was witnessed by the same lineman, who no doubt thought she'd lost her mind. Crisis with children averted.