Nature's Way

Today

I'm not one of those people who are horrified by their cats' tendency to destroy the local rodent population. In fact, when one of them proudly leaves a dead rat (and they can be huge) on the patio to prove they've the right to food and shelter, I'm more inclined to be rather pleased with them. Although, when a field mouse ran into the corner of the dining room this summer and stared at us with its wide open terrified eyes, I did feel very sorry for this tiny scrap of life.

Stepping gingerly into the utility room each morning trying to avoid dead shrews and an assortment of entrails is another thing altogether. And I don't blame Paul at all for being a little nauseated when his first encounter on his way to make tea this morning was with the entire back end of a squirrel, tail and all. At least it makes my draconian no-cats-in-the-bedrooms-ever-or-wandering-the-house-at-night rule seem entirely reasonable.

I don't think that the cats ever try to offer these dead remains to us as gifties - they like to eat what they've caught and carelessly leave behind the indigestible bits.

In My Day

My first cat Ariadne was quite a hunter too. When I moved into a student house in Station Road in Worthing she was very happy to discover that the railway embankment behind the house was full of mice.

My bedroom was on the ground floor, overlooking the back and I used to leave the window open a notch to give Ariadne access. Behind the bed head was a radiator with a vent on the outside of the window. I got used to chasing half-dead mice out of the room.

During that Summer I noticed rather an unpleasant smell developing and couldn't imagine where it was coming from. After some searching I realised that it emanated from the exterior vent, down which some mouse corpses had become lodged. In the winter I hadn't noticed this but it was fairly vile right beneath my bedroom window. I began to form draconian rules in my mind right there and then.

Only one of our cats ever offered us a rodent gift; that was Annalise, who brought a mouse to me when we were in the flat at Belmont. She laid the wriggling back-broken animal at my feet and looked at me for approval. Paul had the unpleasant task of destroying and disposing of the wretched creature. On another occasion we were offered a fully live mouse; we took it out in a jam jar and let it lose on the Downs where, arguably, it lived for an even shorter time than if we'd left it to the cat's mercies.

We saw a van selling cat food today with the slogan "Cat Food as Nature Intended". With our cats in mind that means red in tooth and claw.