Ah don’t you just love the neighbours?

[sparkindarkness]

A drama that is retreating these past few weeks, but it seems I have been inexcusably giving my ever-so-delicate neighbour the vapours and fainting fits.

Because Mia, annoying visiting cat, is catching baby birds. yes, ‘twas that time of years when birds throw themselves out of their nest to fly or plummet. And if they plummeted, Mia was waiting. Bad Mia. No cookie.

The neighbour complained to me on multiple occasions. Bitterly, at length and sometimes tearfully. To which I sympathise, it isn’t nice to see the kitty pounce on the helpless baby bird. I wish it didn’t happen.

But being pounced on by a predator does tend to be the fate mother nature has chosen for the helpless baby birds who fall from their nests. And exactly what am I expected to do about it anyway? Convince Mia of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet? Eloquently persuade her the many merits of pacifism? Maybe get her a saffron robe and see if Buddhism is the path for her? She’s a CAT. Killing helpless baby birds is what cats DO.

Now, bowing to pressure, I have got her a collar with a bell on it. I hate these things and the minute the birds start flying away I’m taking it off her. My last cat had a collar and a bald ring round his neck where the collar had been all his life. And for an active cat climbing and sneaking and putting her head in everywhere, a collar that can get caught must be dangerous. Add to this the constant ringing is annoying ME, so what it must be doing to her super-sensitive hearing, I have no idea.

Of course, it didn’t help. Helpless baby birds that have fallen from their nests while learning how to fly are not especially able to run away from a cat no matter how much jingling said cat does.


So what to do - I want to take the collar off now the baby birds have either died or learned how to fly. The neighbour is still not happy. So, how do I stop Mia hunting short of locking her inside all day and should I just tell the neighbour to deal with it and stop being ridiculous?

Comments

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

I would vote for taking the collar off entirely. City birds take the same chances country birds take, predators exist everywhere in nature.

If you do choose to keep the collar, get one of the stretchy ones made especially for cats, which are designed for the situations you are worried about - her getting it caught on something and not being able to get out of it or strangling.

Kitty love to you from our annoying 4 AM alarm clock, Foofus the Goofus.

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

Domestic cats can decimate songbird populations and some other animals. Cities are much harder for wildlife to last in to begin with. Granted a lot of that damage is from cats gone feral, but still-- this is not nature.

Although, baby birds fallen from the nest are gonna die anyway.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I don't like collars at all, but I'm willing to keep it on for the sake of neighbourly peace so I can take it off her every night - especially if I can get a safe version.


Ah the early morning alarum clock! Where would we be without our near midnight demands for hugs?

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

Neighbor needs to deal. If she's so damn worried she can go out and rescue the birds before the cat gets them. And she should be damned glad they're not baby rabbits -- those SCREAM. It's bloodcurdling.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

That's what we were doing for a week, chasing down baby birds to run them to the RSPCA (who rather respectfully told us to leave to to them while giving us "you're nuts" looks.)

That woujld definitely give her the vapors! But I don't think Mia roams far enough for rabbits

[snuck.livejournal.com]

I'm with the others... neighbour needs to get over it.

I <3 birds, cats, fish and guinea pigs. Reality is that three of those are food for the fourth. If they can move quick they'll be fine - if they can't then it'll be some other cat if not yours.

You could very sweetly turn it back to her - point out that the collar isn't enough, and ask for her to help work out a solution - and then wash your hands of it :P

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I think I'll take that solution, if she thinks it's a problem then hopefully she can come up with a solution

[seryan.livejournal.com]

Suggest she put collars on the birds instead, to freak out the cat, and leave it to her to work out the details. The cat's just doing what it does, and unfortunately for your neighbour, what it does is hunt small things.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I just love the mental image, that would be classic

[dontkickmycane.livejournal.com]

I have to tell you this story, and I swear, it is no word of a lie.

One day, my kids (then about six and three), Hubs and I were standing in our living room looking out on a lovely spring day and deciding our front lawn needed cutting when lo - a baby robin landed right there in front of us to be admired and cooed over by the girl. Not three seconds later, a hawk came, landed on the baby bird and flew away in a flurry of feathers. Right there in front of my two tiny impressionable children. Did they run screaming from the room? No. The boy said, and I quote "It left feathers behind. Can I go have them?" The girl said (after a brief, perhaps slightly shocked silence) "Oh well. I guess that's what happens. Hawks do have to eat." and she turned back to her colouring book. Are they scarred for life? No. Do they understand the cycle of life and know enough to be grateful they're at the top of the food chain? Yes. So I think you know where I'm going with this. If my teeny, tiny, impressionable kiddies can witness and accept that big, carnivorous things eat small, helpless meaty things, I think your neighbor needs to get out more.

One day, I'll tell you about the dead mice on the driveway (courtesy Billy the Great Hunter Cat) and the boy and his tricycle. Just not when you're eating.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Exactly, a kid can understand the concept of predator and prey, so why can;t a grown woman?

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

that is a GREAT story, and yeah. sounds like the neighbor is just one of the sadly out of touch hyper-sensitive sort.

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

I've read this comment three or four times now, and each time I think, I must tell Jaime about it. I only just realised who posted it :)

Still a cute story. Your kids are great.

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

Baby birds are nature's snack food.

However...since they are native and Mia is not, I strongly suggest you keep her indoors at night, to minimize the depredation on the local wildlife. Cats do most of their hunting at night.

What does your idiot neighbour think *happens* to baby birds who fall out of the nest? Get picked up by the baby bird fairy? No! They get et, simple as that.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I keep her indoors anyway because she's inclined to yowl at the door if left out at night. During the day her hunting skills (and ivory coat) make her... not especially adept at killing anything but nature's snack food during the day.

Well, I'm not sure if cats are native to the UK or not, but they have been here for century on century. I know cats do cause chaos in Australia that has had rather limited natural predators and then this furry killing machine shows up on the shores

Exactly! It's natures special special plan. Does she think the parents are going to swoop down and carry it off?

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

I'm with the others. Your neighbor needs to deal. I'd recommend a "snap" collar for Mia if you must put a collar on her. They are designed to break away if they get hung up on something. The stretchy collars are good, but they can twist and hurt the kitty instead of coming off.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

SZhe's already pefected the art of coming back collarless! This would mean a new collar every day :)

[meridae.livejournal.com]

Uh, isn't Mia just helping with the whole natural selection process? Baby birds that plummet instead of fly are deemed by nature to be too stupid to live and are therefore extremely undesirable candidates for contributing to the gene pool. Therefore Mother Nature created Mia and furry beasties like her, to munch on these yummy feathery snacks that fall conveniently from the trees into little kitty mouths (like apples only squirmier) to ensure that the too stupid to live ones don't get the opportunity to reproduce and create even more stupid birds.

I call it 'stupid bird' season, and Muffin often brings crunchy munchy tweety ones inside in her mouff. I don't particularly like disposing of the mutilated little bodies, and I hate it when she brings them in still tweeting, but I don't tell her off for it - it's kind of a natural thing, really.

(I always take the stupid bells off the collars . . . many cats learn to hunt without jingling them. My next door neighbour when I was growing up used to put three or four bells on her her cat's collar and Molly still bought birds in, for she was canny and a mighty huntress and mere bells didn't stop her).

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's not like those baby birds are going to survive anyway. She should just eat her squirmy snack food before someone else does.

There's not much we can really do I feel. Mia is a perfectly useless huntress so I don't think a bell is going to help - she has never successfully caught anything that was actually capable of running away from her

[helbling.livejournal.com]

I am with the others - tell her to grow a spine and actually educate herself with what happens in nature. If she's really that worried, she can set up buckets under the nests or something to catch the damn things, so she can return them and give them a second chance. But it's her to really wants to stop the natural process from happening...so she can get out there and bust her arse to do it. They'll be just as dead regardless of whether it's Mia or another passing predator/omnivore (I've heard rats are v. fond of baby birds; if this is the case, then it's actually far far kinder to let Mia have them).

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

Rats definitely will eat anything. Squirrels too. Actually, the european gray squirrel is a voracious raider of bird nests and causes quite a bit of damage to native populations. Besides the damage it does to trees. Fuzzy vermin.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

Tell her to get over it. Yes, it's sad, but that's nature. Mia's just being a cat.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

And nothing i can do will stop her beiung a cat

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

your neighbour's the *sensitive* type then - really - that's just ... people

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

lol :)

[ladyhelen.livejournal.com]

So, how do I stop Mia hunting short of locking her inside all day

You can't. She's a cat, that's what their instincts tell them to do, so they do it.

and should I just tell the neighbour to deal with it and stop being ridiculous?

Broadly, yes. :)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I have decided she will become a cuddle kitten and stay inside and be hugged all day.

She has decided she will yowl and scratch and hiss and bite until this madness ends.

I think she wins

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

Hrm... Ask her if she would be so freaked out if Mia was a mouser, exclusively, if she would have a problem if the cat was cutting down the mouse (and maybe rat) population instead?

Mini-rant: It's not that they're hunters, it's that they like to hunt something specific... This is always a problem with non-cat people. Oh noz! Not the pretty birdies! It's nature. Put your damned bird feeders in a spot inaccessible to a cat but still somewhere you can see it from your chair, behind your window, safe in your house. end mini-rant

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Not at all, she doesn't like mice. it's the pooor little birds

I wouldn't mind if there was actually environmental concern, but when it;'s just bcause it's a cute thing being eaten? Sorry, it is the fate of cute things to be tasty and crunchy

[jerril]

You should have a collar on Mia anyways, with ID tags. Thus, when she gets lost, she can actually be returned, as opposed to being sent to a shelter and adopted out to someone else.

There are saftey collars you can get for cats, with breakaway clasps or elastic expansion sections so if your cat gets caught on something and panics, she'll escape from the collar instead of getting hurt.

Regarding having a bald spot from a collar - dear god man, didn't you take it off when you brought the cat in? Humans don't wear the same clothes all day every day, why would you force the cat to do the same thing?

If you have a cat who's prone to randomly escaping the house, you could keep the collar on most of the time, but try to take it off at least for a few hours of the day or if possible overnight.

Regarding bells - belling cats is mostly pointless, it just teaches them to walk sneakier so it doesn't tinkle. They jingle at the final moment of the kill, but for most victims it's far too late anyways.

[allthepettylies.livejournal.com]

tell siad neighbor to quit bitching and GTFOver it.

Atticus (my eldest baby) hunts, the neighbors bitch, and I tell them to STFU. If a cat wants to hunt, then who are we to deny them that?

Besides, when I got Atti his front paws were declawed (poor baby) and if he can still hunt/climb/kill then that just shows its something cats need to do.

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of my office manager who doesn't fix any of her dogs because "dogs have feelings too". She's on her third litter of puppies this year. THIS YEAR!

I think your neighbor just needs to get a better grasp of reality.

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

As a mulitple cat owner who frequently has to deal with sad little corpses (and not so little - rabbits, squirrels, jackdaws and field rats are all on the menu) and sometimes mangled broken but not dead bodies, you neighbour should get a life. People this pathetic annoy me intensely. Is she vegan? If she isn't, tell her where to shove her issues.

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

I was at an environment fair two weeks ago and they were selling vegan catfood. Which strikes me as a form of animal abuse, actually.