Happy Pets

Kitten play is a preparation for adult life, for through play the physical skills of hunting and self-defence are acquired. There will be plenty of rough- and-tumble, threat displays, typical aggressive and submissive behaviour, and ambushes and pounces. Attacker and defender will suddenly exchange roles, and there is always an awareness that fighting is ‘pretend’. From about one month old you may see your kitten take a strange sideways leap on stiff legs that looks like shocked surprise, but is in fact an effective method of getting out of the way.

There are a number of manoeuvres directly related to catching prey: a forward pounce, which the adult will use for catching mice and similar prey and which you can elicit by trailing a piece of string; the swat-in-the-air (dangle something on a string for this one), which is useful for striking at a bird; and the scoop-with-the-paw, used to flick a ball of crumpled paper in the air, which could land a fish if timed correctly. Kittens soon learn to dribble like any soccer star.

All kittens will indulge in this ‘hunting play’, but unless taught to hunt for prey may not grow up to be hunters. Indeed, unless their mother brings them prey, and perhaps later takes them out hunting with her, they may not even link the chase with food. If you want a cat that does not hunt, find a female that does not hunt and have one of her kittens almost as soon as it is weaned. If you play with it, the kitten may come to regard its hunting instincts as a normal part of cat— owner activity, rather than using them on furred or feathered visitors to the garden. On the other hand, a cat that is over-socialized when very young may become so fixated on its owner that it is distressed if you are not there, so make sure that it is used to your being away from time to time. Cats that become overdependent upon human company sometimes refuse to eat when boarded in a cattery or otherwise ‘deserted’ by their owners.

The hunting cat can be a very patient animal, waiting for long periods along a route where it expects prey to appear, sitting by a mouse hole or hoping for a bird in range, but more frequently it will locate prey by sight or scent and go after it. Watch a cat stalking in the garden. It moves almost silently through cover, making a dash where there is none and freezing whenever its prey might observe it. It will lower its ears when looking over an obstruction to avoid an obvious silhouette, and keep its stomach low to the ground with the body stretched out to be as unobtrusive as possible, until it has got as close as it can without revealing its purpose.

If close enough, especially from a position higher than the prey, a cat may leap straight on to it. More often, and especially with large prey, it will make a last dash or leap to a spot beside the victim, so that, with its rear legs anchored to the ground, it can strike from a stable position and maintain that stability if there should be a struggle.

The kill is made by a firm bite on the back of the neck that is guided by the break between head and neck, the teeth severing the spinal cord between two neck bones. The whiskers and touch- receptors at the base of the teeth help to locate the exact spot to bite.

If you watch from a window, or at a distance where you will not disturb a cat hunting — remembering that it is not trying to hide from you — you will see all of these actions. When a cat is almost ready to spring it will begin to quiver with excitement. The hind legs may go through treading motions, the rear swing from side to side and the head move to help judge precisely the correct distance, while the tail will almost certainly flicker at the tip even when everything else is poised for action. You may even see a cat go through these manoeuvres when it is watching prey through a window, and you will often see a cat make a machine-gun-like chattering at prey beyond its reach. It sounds like sheer frustration — and probably is exactly that, triggered off because in a less exaggerated form this is the movement used to locate the spot for the neck bite. Since the cat realizes it cannot reach the prey, it is in effect demonstrating what it would do if it could.

Birds, at which this action is most often directed, are usually stalked by the cat dashing from cover to a point where the bird may see it, freezing until something interrupts the bird’s line of vision (remember, birds can see behind themselves), and then dashing forward again. Since a mature bird is rarely pounced on before it takes wing, the attack usually consists of a blow to knock the bird to the ground as it becomes airborne.

Large prey such as rats may also be battered initially with the paws before an attempt to kill. This has the effect of subduing the animal’s resistance, and is thought to be connected with the way cats sometimes play with their victims before killing them.

A cat should never be punished for bringing its prey home to you. It should be thanked for the present, however much you would like to reject it — though you might try to train your cat not to bring such offerings into the house! If you are unhappy at your cat being a hunter, you should think twice about having a cat at all: cats must eat meat — and even if it is canned, some animal must die to provide it.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The hunter - in play and for real

• Teaching the Cockatiel to Talk
• Cockatiels Breeding Season, how to take care the mom and babies
• Wildcat Pedigree, a Hunter's Build, every cat does its hunting
• Cosy Pet, Toys for Feline girls and boys
• Cockatiels Breeding Season, how to take care the mom and babies part 3
• Wrasses and Hogfishes/ Family Labridae
• Cockatiels Breeding Season, how to take care the mom and babies part 2
• Little Bird Taming
• Miscellaneous Aquarium Fishes Species
• Cat Flap for the Outdoor Cat and Scratching Post for Indoor Cat

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Birds, Cats, Fish, Kittens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.