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Why won’t my cat eat the head?
By Phyllis DeGioia
July 16, 2009
Most serial killers leave some kind of signature. Dickens’ is to leave the rodent’s decapitated head. Apparently he thinks the heads are too yucky or difficult to eat; I guess the skull is not worth the effort unless you’re just going to swallow the thing whole. I have visions of the horse’s head in “The Godfather” reduced to a feline scale, although I’ve stopped screaming loudly enough to wake the dead when I find one.
Talk about bloody murder, murder most foul. … I want to know why he refuses to eat the head. It’s just unnerving to find a head without a body. Ask Johnny Depp in “Sleepy Hollow.”
Last night my eye caught something on the brown rug in the living room. Sadly, it was exactly what I thought: a decapitated rodent head resting on what was left of its neck, its previously cute snout pointed at the ceiling. That meant that in all likelihood Dickens had left most of the rest of the rodent, minus a few victory bites, somewhere in the house. I searched for it rather than accidentally step on it, and wandered gingerly through the house. Never found it. Usually the remainder is adjacent to the decapitated head. Last night he must have either brought the mouse head in from the outside as a gruesome victory, looking for a traitor’s gate on which to pike it ( a la “Braveheart”), or found the rest of it to be tasty.
I hope it wasn’t Leroy. I’m not good at identifying rodents, but twice now a chubby dark rodent that I suspect is a shrew has had the poor luck to be captured and carried into the porch or has had the indecency to get in by himself. Once he made it all the way into the house, which is when I named him Leroy. Leroy sauntered along at his own slow speed with a kind of doop-de-doo ramble with attitude as though he were sightseeing and I should get out of his way. I shooed him out onto the porch with a broom and from there directly to the yard. He is either a big bad boy daring me to nail him– the Travis Bickel of shrews calling ”You talkin’ to me?” – or he’s too ignorant to realize he’s rambled into enemy territory. When I see Big Bad Leroy Brown, I wonder where Dickens and Dodger are. I envision Dickens saying “heads are going to roll around here!” in the most literal sense.
Note to self: never get attached to wildlife by naming them after Jim Croce songs, especially if you get upset when they get decapitated. Birds gotta fly, bees gotta buzz, and cats – at least mine – gotta decapitate. It’s an offer nature can’t refuse.
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The cat we had growing up was a good mouser, which was nice to have in the fall when things got colder and the rodents tried to move in to the old farm house. He would eat everything but the legs and tail. No joke. You would find four little feet and tail all in the same general area, usually within a one foot circle.
Comment by Dani — July 16, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
My cat, Sophia, leaves the bird intact.
Disguisting, nonetheless.
At least, Phyllis, you know the animal is dead without its head. When Sophia is carrying the bird in her mouth, I have to discern whether the bird is just stunned or gone to a heavenly place. In other words, should I try to save it or no.
The killing goes on and on and on. Terrible to witness, I find.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — July 16, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
Our woods are prime Great Horned Owl habitat. It is therefore not unusual to find severed bunny heads in the yard. One day my cute puppy bounded up to me - carrying a severed bunny head by the ears. Fortunately he seems not to have been permanently traumatized by the fact that I squealed and ran away from him.
That was over a year ago. I’m pretty much over it now, though sometimes it creeps me out to see them staring up at me from the trash can.
Comment by Janeen — July 16, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
I am wired wrong.
When my pets kill rodents, I cheer.
And even though I have nothing against bunnies (not being a gardener myself), I’d probably celebrate Addy’s hunting prowess if she got one.
Comment by Lis — July 16, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
I am a gardener. I am happy when either the dog or the cat dispatch varmits.
Comment by Dorene — July 16, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
Kat is helth-conshus. Brainz gotz too much kolesterol!
http://www.bordom.net/view/264.....erol_1170_
Hah! Yesterday morning, as Professor Chaos was leaving for work, I heard him tell Pip that she was not bringing that thing inside. Then I forgot about it. I mean, if it was important, he’d have mentioned it, right? Must have just been a bone or a stick she had, right?
Foolish mortal. I didn’t got out the front door for several hours (usually use the back).
Right on the doorstep was a partially-consumed, well-aged, fly-shot groundhog.
Normally she drags them home right after she murders them. This one she apparently had stashed in the hayfield and retrieved a few (sultry) days later.
I put on nitrile gloves for the disposal. A full Level-1 Hazmat suit would not have been overkill.
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 16, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
Our cats (back in the day, when we let them go outside because that’s what cats do) brought the birds they caught into the house to their food dishes. I always thought that was very civilized of them.
Comment by Kim Thornton — July 16, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
I know Sophia is proud of herself and wants to bring her catch into the house as a present for me—she tries to do just that.
However, a half-dead bird or a whatever is not a delicacy to me. I guess she and I do not share the same sense of taste.
My husband thinks my darling cat gave up killing birds or whatever. Not so, for I just hide them so he cannot see them. Someday it will all come out, when he digs around the yard. Until he does, it is “happy hunting” for Sophia. Still, I recoil every time she gets a “prize”.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — July 16, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
I would buy my dogs 40 lbs of frozen loose chicken necks. Often within the box would be a whole head, beak, feathers, and comb. It was bad enough to haul the box into the bath tub, wait for it to defrost, but when I would come across an intact head, I would just about lose it. Now I buy the necks already in 10 lb bags, 4 at a time. Worth the extra $$$. No extraneous body parts and easier to put in the freezer.
My one remaining cat, if you discount the feral I have been feeding for 8 months, is an indoor girl with occasional soirees into the dog yard, an indoor cat. She has dealt efficiently with any small rodent who dares to venture out of the attic, broom closet or upstairs storage under the eaves. If she doesn’t gettem, the dogs will, and if they do there are no telltale body parts left! Gulp. Gone.
Comment by Anne T — July 16, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
As a former bunny owner (can’t have them with the dogs I have), I would have a hard time with bunny heads being dragged around by the ears. I would lose my lunch, actually.
“Brainz gotz too much kolesterol!”
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — July 17, 2009 @ 5:49 am