Day 195/365: A Caturday survey, via silveradept

[nanila]

Telstar at sunset, sitting on the lock’s edge on high alert.

1. How many/what kind of pets do you have? One middle-aged, very handsome, very friendly male tuxedo cat.
   
   
2. Names? Telstar/Telly/Cattus/Teldos (from when Humuhumu couldn’t say his name properly)
   
   
3. How old are they? He turns nine next month.
   
   
4. How did you get your pets? A friend of ours, on hearing that we were planning to adopt a cat, turned up with Telstar and his brother Sputnik in a cardboard carrier when they were about 9 weeks old. Neighbours of his had found a pregnant cat and their three teenage daughters spent their summer holidays doing nothing but cuddling the kittens. As a result, both Telstar and Sputnik are (were) by far the nicest and gentlest cats I have ever met.
   
   
5. Was it love at first sight? Yup.
   
   
6. What makes your pet one of a kind? He’s completely soft and sweet with humans, but absolutely lethal to his prey. In his younger days, he would bring us a daily offering, usually a small mammal. We still get offerings but they’re much less frequent.
   
   
7. What is your absolute favorite thing about your pets? He trusts and loves us, and that is reciprocal.
   
   
8. What's the funniest thing your pets have ever done? As a kitten, he attempted to pounce on the moon, which was reflected in the frozen surface of the pond in our back garden. That ended, predictably, with a mournful and bedraggled Telstar wrapped in a towel. There was also the time he chased a full-grown pheasant into the bloke’s parents’ house one afternoon over Christmas, presumably as a suggestion for what we ought to have for supper.
   
   
9. What's the naughtiest thing your pet has ever done? It was both artistic and gruesome, but once when we went away for a weekend, he eviscerated and partially consumed a grey squirrel at the top of the landing. The nose, a couple of paws and innards were scattered around the hindquarters and tail, which had been arranged (deliberately??) to look as though the squirrel had attempted to teleport through the landing. There are photos behind the cut, but I warn you, they are quite unpleasant.
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Please tell your pet I love them, because it's true. With pleasure.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Oh, dear. A pheasant! In the house!!

[nanila]

It caused a little but of a kerfuffle before we managed to chase it back out. Telstar was most disappointed in us.

[hilarita]

That's very artistic. And horrible.
The most grisly event was the half rabbit left outside the back door. The naughtiest was chasing a live shrew into the house. It hid behind the freezer, and my dad had to fish it out, and it crapped on his hand. I think this made it my dad's most *memorable* birthday...

[nanila]

Whyyyy with the half-of-things/things-with-just-the-head-missing??? And a live shrew! I'm sure there was zero interest evinced by the feline in eating it, too.

[davidgillon]

Friend of a friend, in discussion of their mighty hunter, claimed it had dragged home the back half of another cat. Everyone presumed it was actually roadkill, but still.

[hilarita]

Of course the cat didn't want to eat the shrew. She regularly presented us with halves of voles, paws of mice and rats, bits of bird, and entire dead shrews. Nicely lined up outside the back door. I think the record was seven corpses. In the height of her hunting days, she'd bring back at least one corpse a night (usually two or three), and even into her evening years (she disappeared aged 17 or so - we never knew her age, as she was from a rescue charity), she'd bring home one or two corpses a week, just to show she cared.
She wasn't the world's brightest cat, but by size, she was the mightiest hunter. She looked kitten-size even as an adult, and once, she tried to take on a magpie. There were black and white feathers everywhere. She didn't kill it, but she did make one hell of a mess.
I loved her to bits, but really could have done with fewer corpses to dispose of. We used the coal shovel to take them down the garden and put them on the compost heap.

[pbristow]

Yeah, that Stargate closed at *just* the wrong moment, didn't it squirrel? =:o]

[nanila]

Very bad timing indeed. :(

[kotturinn]

That is quite a special arrangement of remains! I am quite happy to say my mogs come nowhere close to that.
That was brilliant kitten socialisation on the part of your ex-neighbours.

[nanila]

He hasn't left us anything approaching that horror for years, thankfully! And yes, I'll always be grateful to those girls.

[samskeyti]

1) He is the Clooney of cats!

2-8) ADORABLE!!

9) The Silence of the Squirrels D:

[nanila]

That is such a good description of Telstar! I shall remember it.

Yep, I do hope he never has enough animosity towards us to repeat that artistic endeavour...

[silveradept]

Hello Telstar. Your hunting skills have been noted, and we do not need further demonstrations of your abilities in that regard. Perhaps go back to hunting Luna?

[nanila]

Yes, this. Your humans are duly humbled and shall not ever forget to leave enough crunchies out for you again.

[surpassingly]

Aaaaaaahhhhh ♥ ♥ ♥ Lovely Telstar!

[nanila]

He's a beauty. Even when he comes in covered in grass seeds like he did this evening.

[vi]

Telstar look so regal in that shot! The story about him pouncing onto the pond made me laugh.

[nanila]

We laughed, too, poor Telly. He was not impressed with us or his condition for several hours afterward.

[askygoneonfire]

That squirrel is AMAZING. I find it impossible to believe he didn't, sniggering, arrange it on purpose.

[nanila]

Yeah. I kind of don't want to know how he got the tail to stay like that. O.O

[ayebydan]

I love cats for stories like this. Our old cat brought us a robin once. It was still alive. Chaos ensued.

[nanila]

We get brought alive things alllll the time. Apparently it's because cats think we're rubbish at hunting and need to be taught. My least favourite are the moorhens, because chasing them back out again is such a palaver.

[redsixwing]

A very handsome Telstar. <3

I think the 'best' my old cat Stormy ever brought me was an entire, strangled yellow-bellied weasel. She'd killed it and then discovered the infamous musk and decided she wasn't interested in eating it, so she laid it artistically out on the driveway and howled until Two Legs* came and took it away.

*yours truly, in this case.

[nanila]

Aaaah dead weasel! No one wants a dead weasel, Stormy. :P

Apparently this is why cats often bring in whole shrews as well. Shrews don't taste very good to cats but I guess they figure silly old Two Legses don't know any better. After all, they eat those weird "fruit" and "vegetable" things.

[redsixwing]

Hahahah! I don't want this, do you?

That's such a very cat thing to do. XD Maybe... you shouldn't have killed it, then?