Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Overheard in the Kitchen...

I'm walking back from the office with the kibble sacks, having fed Rannie and Huck...
Me: "Gawd, he hits that bowl like a shark taking a surfer!"

RX: "That is one of nature's eating machines. If he was an outside cat, I don't think we'd have much of a squirrel problem."

18 comments:

Blackwing1 said...

Our cute little kitty is a 2x-size Huck-clone. A few years ago some red squirrels tried to muscle-in on the grey-squirrel turf in our back yard. Tiger (hey, the neighbor kids named him) disposed of three (3) red squirrels in less than a week. Ate them head-first ("Mmmm....braaiiinns"), leaving only the tails. I put those up on a clothesline to encourage the others.

Tam said...

"Our cute little kitty is a 2x-size Huck-clone."

40 pounds? That's a big cat!

Kristophr said...

Heh. Check out some of Tam's vids of Huck.

Is your animal a lynx hybrid?

Blackwing1 said...

Ooops. Guess I'm still thinking Huck's just a little-bitty kitten.

Sorry about that, ma'am. Our little-bitty kitty is right around 19 pounds. Put 'em side-by-side (for the couple of milliseconds THAT would last) and I'm thinking I'd be hard-pressed to tell them apart.

How old IS he now?

Tam said...

Just turned two. (We have assigned his b-day to Independence Day, much like Tommy's was Halloween.)

Sport Pilot said...

We have an outdoor cat who tangled with a tree rat and broke her pelvis. After several weeks of being nursed back to health and getting her strength back she captured a tree rat and brought it to me. Given it was almost as big as she was I was amazed.

Jeff said...

Couple friends here in Vegas keep outside cats just to kill flying rats.

If I wasn't so allergic to them I'd have one as well. I hate those damn pigeons...

BGMiller said...

Forget eliminating the squirrel problem...
Were Huck an outside cat I dare say you would notice a significant reduction in you stray dog problem.

And you may even notice fewer panhandlers.

BGM

Anonymous said...

Our cat is an excellent mouser, and occasional fincher, but a squirrel once took a chunk out of hum. I don't think he looks at squirrels much anymore. -- Lyle

DaddyBear said...

TImmy, our outdoor cat, has begun doing his part in reducing the mole, squirrel, mouse, and frog population in our little biome. It's always interesting to open up the door to see what he's left on the mat. I just wish he was smart enough to eat what he kills.

Drang said...

Ratbane earned his sobriquet by going to the National Guard Armory up the street when the 81st Brigade was in the sandbox, and doing his part on the Global War on Terrorist Rats.

Our sweet, cuddly, loving Princess "loves to eat dem mousies, mousies what she lub to eat. Bite they little heads off, nibble on they little feet."
Or moles, etc.

Kristophr said...

A video of Blackwing1's cat, I think ...

Justthisguy said...

Mah kitteh, who went missing, presumed dead, back in May was an outdoor cat for his whole 17 years or so. He was a real "don't fence me in" kind of guy. I don't they he spent as much as two months total in his life indoors, and that's counting time recovering from wounds.

Being Mainely Coonish, he only slept with me when sick or wounded. I recall waking up to cat pus and cat blood on my pillow when the boy popped an abscess gotten from a dog attack.

Justthisguy said...

Umm, that should be "think".

Justthisguy said...

Drang, I used to own a t-shirt with that Kliban cartoon on it. I wore it to pieces. "Gopher Baroque" is another good t-shirt, if you like Auld Musick.

markm said...

Daddybear: Just be thankful the "presents" are dead. My son has a defective cat. It's fine at catching mice, but it plays catch and release. He's lucky if he hears the squealing and gets there in time to snag the mouse's tail before it escapes. (He just pitches the mouse into the miniature velociraptor* pen.)

*Chickens. If you question that, you should see a half dozen hens going after a live snack. And the eggs taste much, much better with a diet of bugs and vermin.

Anonymous said...

Many years back, Dandy (short for Dandelion) learned he could duck under the husky's legs when the dog went out for his morning ablutions. Sometime that afternoon we'd find Dandy asleep in one of the chairs on the deck, usually with 3-4 mouse bodies under the chair.

No squirrels, as our acreage had not enough trees to support many. Interestingly, he and the junior lion from the house across the road learned to hunt together, occasionally bringing back what was left of a rabbit.

Mikael said...

My grandparents had a big ol' indoor/outdoor come as he please tomcat. I'm pretty confident in saying it was at least 25 lbs. One of my childhood memories is seeing it chase half a rat... the front half. It lived to be 17, died of natural causes.