Cat brining in live lizards and birds

[rebeccat]

My cat keeps bringing live lizards and birds into my house. I keep the doors open, so it's partly my fault. But, why does she have to bring them inside and how can I prevent this behavior?

 

[my2cats67]

She is giving you a gift to show you what a good hunter she. I don't know how you can stop her maybe some one else can later

 

[Kat0121]

Yup . These are gifts. Aside from keeping her indoors, I don't know of any way to deter her from doing that. As mentioned above, she's showing you what a great hunter she is and what a lousy one you are. 

This will bump the thread up so someone else who has cats that do this may have another answer. My cats are all indoor only so the only "gifts" they bring me are mice of the catnip variety. 

 

[di and bob]

I always accept my cat's 'gifts' and then turn them loose outside, if it makes them feel good, why not? 

 

[Kat0121]

 
I always accept my cat's 'gifts' and then turn them loose outside, if it makes them feel good, why not? 

Do most cats bring their "gifts" in live?? I have an enclosed screen room out back that I let the girls hang out in at night. We have a ton of lizards in Florida so thy have plenty of entertainment. They haven't caught any yet. I leave the slider open when they go out so they can come back in as they please. I've had live lizards come in before and they are hard to catch. Sophie's more interested in the lizards than Lilith. She just likes to be nosy and watch everything go by. She's also a supreme diva and I think that she believes that hunting is beneath her. 

 

[mojoseph]

Before our dogs passed away, we had a dog door, so the cats were free to come and go 24/7. In the spring especially, we would wake up constantly to the triumphant hunter's cry of a cat and know that it was time to "GET THE NET!"

Yep, they let so many birds, bunnies and mice free  in the house that I kept a butterfly net beside my bed. One time I snagged what I thought was a sparrow flying through the kitchen and it turned out to be a giant luna moth. When they were babies, they would even bring in live earthworms. 

If there had been any way to keep them from doing this, believe me, we would have figured it out! 

Now we are dogless and the cats are inside, so the net has been retired for the present! 

 

[roguethecat]

The Rogue usually brings in the little garden snakes from the back yard, using his cat door. He is really serious about it, and spends hours looking for them after I've snatched them away and put them in the front yard hoping he won't find them there. His trick is to do it in the evening hours when the poor things are too cold to escape him.They all have been quite surprised, but uninjured, yet.

Someone else brought in a finch once, which I found dead on the living room carpet. As it obviously couldn't be saved and no one was interested in eating it, I gave it to the feral cats living in the yard, who did eat it after making sure it was really, really dead.

How to prevent it? Depends on where your cat gets the critters from. Maybe you can introduce some thorny bushes for lizards to flee into and birds to perch safely on? Make sure your hummingbird attractions are not on ground level? Bird baths/feeders are at least 10 feet from the ground?

So, yes, like Di and Bob says, rescue the critters if you can, feel sorry about the dead ones and try to make up for them by donating to nature preservation societies, or at least don't use chemicals in the yard to kill off the rest. 

 

[fhicat]

 
Do most cats bring their "gifts" in live??

Live prey are "extra special". For a cat to resist stomping and shredding the poor thing to death, only to present it to her favorite human, is an "extra special" serving of love. Cats, unlike dogs, don't normally share -- none of the pack mentality and all. Live prey means she's sharing her kill with her favorite human.

Feel special, praise her lavishly, make a big dramatic show of accepting the gift, then release them when she ain't looking.