smokey2

Chapter 3: Cats as cold-blooded killers

The two clever cats I've had (and the two that managed to stay alive to this day) are Smokey and Peaches (also known as Hokey and Pooches), and they are both cold-blooded killers.
Ever since we came across Smokey, dead animals have played a part in my home life. Way back in first grade, I even felt so strongly about these acts of cruelty that I made a page about them in my book entitled, "My Cats." The line in the book is, "There are dead birds around the yard. There are squirrel tails in the garage." The sad part is, that was all true. Smokey had to fend for himself and hunt for himself, and not having a personal kitty garbage can, he left his remains for us. Under out porch in the front of our house, he had a little store or squirrels, as he did in the garage. I would periodically check up on them, just to see how they were decaying, and how many new ones were added. Smokey was kind enough not to share his prizes with us, he just left them outside.
The addition of Peaches a few years ago, however, changed everything. She had different views on what should be done with a killed animal, and loves parading around, freshly caught prey in the mouth, sometimes still alive. When the animals are already dead, you just have to wrestle it away from them. One time, Smokey was walking about the house, a lump of something fleshy hanging out of his mouth. He kept shaking his head, as if he was trying to get it to go away, but it was firmly wedged somewhere in his mouth. Now I saw this, and it frightened me greatly. Was this a part of him, or some other animal? I had to investigate. I took a paper towel, and prodded at the lump, which was like a few stringy tendons with a ball of guts at the end. He did not flinch as if it hurt, so I figured it was a different animal part. I grabbed it firmly, and managed to rip it out from between his teeth, and let me tell you, it was definitely one of the more disgusting things I've ever had to do. You might be disgusted thinking about it, but believe me, having to do it was a hundred times worse. Sometimes they bring their catches inside and take them somewhere to rip them to shreds. One time, the cat brought something into my room, and was chewing it on the corner of my rug. I got it away from whichever cat it was, I don't remember, but to this day, both cats will go back to that corner and sit there, sniffing and licking?yes, licking?the rug. It's slightly disturbing.
Most of the animals that are brought inside to be eaten are small rodents, and the occasional squirrel. Birds, however, are a different story.
Generally birds are harder to catch, because of the flying advantage, and once caught are harder to kill. First the cats will bring the bird inside, where it proceeds to escape and fly around the house in a desperate attempt to get away. The cat will chase it around the house for a while, until the bird finds a little corner where it cannot be reached. After following the chirps, you can find the bird, usually slightly mangled, a trembling mess of feathers. You pick up the bird on a dustpan, where you assess the damage. Best case scenario, the bird will be shaking violently and only be missing half its feathers, and it gets worse from there. If it is still alive, the only thing you can do is lock the cats in a room somewhere, and let the bird go outside to die. Then you have to go clean up the blood and feathers strewn all over the house.
The vole was similar to this, in all probability. I found a vole (basically a mouse) in my basement. A cat probably brought it in, where it escaped to the basement, where I found it, doing the whole shaking violently thing. It was missing some fur, and after I tried to revive it with food and water, it proceeded to go and die on me, and now it's in the garden, probably bloated from the rain we had. Eww?

Chapter 4: The unfairness of distemper.

After I lost Dusty, and before I got Peaches, I decided I needed a new cat, so I went to the local SPCA, in Conshohocken, and found an adorable little kitten, about 3 weeks old, that I named Thunder. Thunder was so small he/she could not even make it to my bed, I had to create a set of stairs for it to climb. I got the cat on a Monday, and it was scheduled to go to its first vet appointment on Thursday of that week. I had originally planned to escort it to the vet, but instead I went to a friend's house. After, my mom came to pick me up, and I noticed that Thunder was not around. I asked my mom the whereabouts of my playmate, and reluctantly she told me, when she and Greg (my brother) had gone to get Thunder to take it to the vet, there was something wrong. They had picked her (I think) up, and she was limp in their arms. Limp like a soggy piece of bread. So they took her to the vet, where they learned she had distemper, and there as nothing they could do to save her, so after 3 days of having my kitten, it was put to sleep, and I didn't even get to say good bye. :'( Boo-hoo.