The photograph on this page was taken by the boyfriend of a woman who is the caregiver of a grey cat who is allowed outside and who likes to bring her prey animals inside the home, which is entirely typical. Note: some cats devour their prey animals where they kill them. Often domestic cats like to bring their prey animals back to their owner’s home because that is their den; their inner sanctum. That’s where they spend their time and they want to bring it back to eat. The idea is that they want to show their owner how to kill animals if they bring a live one back or perhaps their ‘offspring’ who they confuse with their human caregiver is being weaned and therefore they need to begin to eat solids such as mice!
THERE ARE MORE CAT FLAPS AT THE BASE OF THE PAGE.
That’s the general gist of what is going on, or that is what we believe, and it causes consternation in many cat caregivers. As a consequence, they stop their cat coming inside which is exactly what has happened in this instance. Look at the cat’s eyes; waiting for the rejection, to be told to go away, but not comprehending.
Do you do the same thing? Can you do the same thing? Cat flaps (doors) don’t distinguish between cats coming into the home with or without a mouse which is why my cat brings mice into my home and eats them under my bed at 4 o’clock in the morning when I am inside the bed. Crunch, crunch. Not pleasant. And the poor mice. He’s wiped out an entire family.
These are good reasons why you should stop your cat coming inside with a prey animal but how do you achieve it? There is actually a brand-new device which I think is in the development stage which is a cat flap sophisticated enough to tell whether a cat has an animal in their mouth. I have written about that some time ago. It is certainly a device which helps to tackle an almost insoluble problem but how most cat owners will accept it. They don’t ban their cat. It seems to me that it is almost impossible to ban your cat from coming into a cat flap with a mouse in their jaws.
It seems that the story behind the picture is that the owners don’t have a cat flap fitted. They let their cat out an in on her request. Not a bad solution for conservation of wildlife but very inconvenient for the owner. Mice in the home can be a big problem for some cat owners….
From mumsnet.com:
“… and just buggered off. I have tried to catch it to lob it in the garden but no luck. For the record the cat despises me so I am certain this was done on purpose.”
And:
“When there’s been one [a mouse] in the house, I’ve not been able to sleep, and the last time he brought one in I had the police called on me and a complaint made because I was screaming my head off and trying to kill the mouse by yeeting the bathroom scales at it. I was a nervous wreck for a few days after.”
For most cats you’d have to be up all night because my cat is a night stalker; active all night long, and I don’t know when he’s coming in or going out through the cat flap. I know that he hunts mice during the night but I can’t foretell when he’s going to bring one inside and eat it. Perhaps the solution that most cat caregivers employ is to keep their cat inside at night, every night, which helps to manage the problem. It also pleases the conservationists because they believe that if you keep your cat indoors at night it curbs hunting as cats are crepuscular.
But this must be tricky. To allow a cat outside during the day when they are generally likely to be less active and lock the cat door at night might confuse a domestic cat. It certainly would initially. I know my cat would probably break the cat flap and get out. He is that determined and strong. If he was unsuccessful, he’d probably harm himself in trying. It is almost cruel to temporarily ban a cat from doing something they enjoy tremendously every day. They’ll learn that the cat flap is about to be locked at a certain time. They might even stay out to avoid it.
SOME MORE ON CAT FLAPS:
