Maybe he's hungry

[susandennis]

So of course I spent a fair amount of time reading about cats and birds. And not getting any really good info. Logically, all the advice assumes the cat roams outside climbing trees and wandering off. Almost every piece of advice started off with "put a bell on the cat". Biggie wears a bell and always has.

One place, however, suggested that if the cat isn't hungry, the cat won't hunt. While I'm not sure that applies to Biggie, it's worth looking into. He has not eaten much lately. At all. He LOVES his pill pockets and his treats but I'm not needing to refresh his kibble tree lately at all. He's never liked wet food. But, I had some in the larder and have tried a couple. He loved the juice from one. Would not touch another was 'meh' about a third.

So today I think I'll go to the pet food store and get a variety pack and see if I can tempt him. IF the pet food store is open. Just remembered to check Instagram and yep they are open today. Nice.

He's actually been more of his old self this morning, crawling up here into my lap and accepting snuggles with no hint a biting action. But, he's also out there now looking for his next victim.

Robby cleaned up the remaining feathers this morning. The birds are gray and the carpet does a great job of hiding their feathers. I thought I'd gotten it all yesterday. But Biggie spent a lot of time in the spot where he'd left the birds looking and rolling around. And then walked by me.



I think this is called The Smoking Gun.

I did find a new Stickie yesterday. This one has bells. It's kind of an adult/Mardi Gras Stickie.



He likes it but doesn't LOVE Stickie Love it. But, he's happy to indulge me a little and he'll play for a few minutes at a time.

And, at the risk of inviting trouble, so far, no feathered gifts today.

There is no baseball today. I finished the latest and last Bosch series yesterday. The spinoff, like the revamped Leverage, will be on IMDB with is basically Amazon Prime with ads, which annoys the shit out of me. I will probably watch both but be pissed off the whole time.

This week has way more events than my normal weeks and next week my brother will be here for a week. So excitement ahead!! But, today, cat food.

Comments

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

I think some cats just have really strong innate hunter instincts. Back when we still had cats, one of them, Tenzing, who was the sweetest, gentlest, most laid back cat ever, would just suddenly turn into a laser-focused killing machine the minute he saw anything that moved. We had our first bird, Dante, while we had those two cats, and while we kept the cats separate from the bird as much as possible, a couple of times, bird and cats were in the same room (with bird out of the cage), and Tenzing more than once would just leap into the air trying to get Dante as he flew around the room. Dali, on the other hand, couldn't be arsed. The only things Tenzing wouldn't go after were our bearded dragons — they scared him.

[sherlock999.livejournal.com]

Boy, I sure hope he loses this habit! I wonder if he'd would like a tunnel? Dobby has one and invented the Tunnel Sneak Attack game: He goes in the tunnel, waiting in there for me to toss his mice toward the end of it he's facing. He wins if he managed to hear the mouse sailing through the air and can dart out to catch it before it actually hits the ground. He almost always wins! We're also big fans of the red dot here.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put too much stock in the thing about them not hunting if they're not hungry. I've always had outside cats, none of them have been hungry, and the ones that enjoy hunting hunt.

[terri gordon (from livejournal.com)]

I would take the comment about not being hungry and not hunting with a grain of salt. Cats, unfortunately catch and kill birds for the fun of it whether they are hungry or not. It’s just an ages old instinct ingrained in them. Maybr try a different type if bell on his collar?

[alice-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Jasper is a very well fed cat. He also has a huge field to play in. He hunts rodents and often brings them home, he definitely eats some of them but not all. He obviously loves hunting . I do wonder if another cat would mean he would hunt less as he would have a 'playmate' but thats a hard route to take if it doesn't suit him.

Is there another cat in the building you could introduce him to for play dates?

[letmesaythis.livejournal.com]

I'm not buying the hunting due to hunger theory at all.

I have two of my own theories. 1. playing with sticky just primes him for more hunting so less sticky is good. 2. playing with sticky satisfies that instinct to hunt so more sticky is good. Scientific experimentation is needed.

All of that being said, until cats start talking we'll never figure them out, and maybe not even then!