Life with Carnivores
Tuesday I rolled out of bed and did my regular morning check under the futon for dead animals. (The cats have decided this makes a good lair.) Ack, yep, there was a headless mouse, not only dead but with innards drying to the rug. I pulled it off and clomped out back in my rain boots to throw the poor fuzzy guy in the bushes, sprayed the rug with 3% hydrogen peroxide, dabbed, et, voilà. Done for the morning.
Except that when I moved into the bathroom, Mr Chipmunk was lying on the rug, getting stiff. He was a big one that I had tried to save the night before, but he had hidden in the garage and was impossible to find. He joined Mr Headless in the bushes.
I used to wrap them in plastic bags and put them in the garbage can, but we started seeing maggots when we rolled it out to the curb. Not having that.
My mornings have routine. After I feed the cats, I head down to the basement to empty the dehumidifier into the drain. I moved the cover from the drain...and a big frog hopped out! How did he get there? Did a cat carry him in, and he escaped under the cover with no sign of entry? Did he come up the drain through the screen, also with no sign of entry? I have no idea. But there he was, hopping confusedly and fairly slowly around the basement. This one I could save! I grabbed our "mouse" cup (which we use to capture live things or transport those we don't want to touch), scooped him up, and took him down to our little creek, which is really a drainage ditch. One happy frog. And a decent ending to the caravan of cat victims.
My other companion these days is a human carnivore. We could easily split right in half a plate of a normal person's dinner: he would eat all the meat and maybe some of the carbs,
I would eat all the vegetables and the rest of the carbs. I might take a bit of his meat, and we would have to share dessert. We're getting along just fine.
As I left the house Tuesday morning, Silverstein came trotting quickly toward me from the field, tail high in the air, with a lovely field mouse dangling from his teeth. He dropped it for me to...you guessed it, throw in the bushes and headed toward his cat food. He is in cat paradise.
I used to wrap them in plastic bags and put them in the garbage can, but we started seeing maggots when we rolled it out to the curb. Not having that.
My mornings have routine. After I feed the cats, I head down to the basement to empty the dehumidifier into the drain. I moved the cover from the drain...and a big frog hopped out! How did he get there? Did a cat carry him in, and he escaped under the cover with no sign of entry? Did he come up the drain through the screen, also with no sign of entry? I have no idea. But there he was, hopping confusedly and fairly slowly around the basement. This one I could save! I grabbed our "mouse" cup (which we use to capture live things or transport those we don't want to touch), scooped him up, and took him down to our little creek, which is really a drainage ditch. One happy frog. And a decent ending to the caravan of cat victims.
My other companion these days is a human carnivore. We could easily split right in half a plate of a normal person's dinner: he would eat all the meat and maybe some of the carbs, I would eat all the vegetables and the rest of the carbs. I might take a bit of his meat, and we would have to share dessert. We're getting along just fine.
As I left the house Tuesday morning, Silverstein came trotting quickly toward me from the field, tail high in the air, with a lovely field mouse dangling from his teeth. He dropped it for me to...you guessed it, throw in the bushes and headed toward his cat food. He is in cat paradise.
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