Cats are little murder machines...

[elfs]

Murder victim

I'm not sure if this will reveal that Omaha and I are monsters or not, but yesterday we watched our cats play catch-and-release with a small rabbit over and over again. It was horrifying in that way that cats are: they're little murder machines that, even when well-fed, enjoy torturing small animals for the sheer practice of doing so. Sienna, the younger and larger cat, had caught the poor beast, which screamed with this high-pitched, repeating pattern over and over whenever she had it in her mouth, and kept dragging it back to the yard to show Necco. We didn't try to stop them.

Sienna with her new "toy."

Sienna would let it go, and when it tried to run away she would catch it with almost contemptuous ease, drag it back, and let it go again.

Necco, the older cat, would sometimes come in and stalk and pretend to pounce, never quite landing on the creature. It would bound away and Necco would catch it. Eventually, thankfully, the creature did get away, or at least the next time we looked the cats were no longer playing with it and there was no sign of a body or blood. Part of me is grateful. Part of me is disappointed: our neighborhood has a serious rabbit problem, and there's no funding to deal with it at all, and we're all annoyed by just how many of them there are, and there's only one way to deal with them and it isn't any prettier than what the cats intended.

Master and Apprentice

Comments

[omahas]

They don't murder. They follow their instincts. And we have a massive rabbit crisis around here. I for one would have no problem capturing one of the larger rabbits and eating it. They are high in protein (though practically negligible in nutrients, so don't make it your only food).