Today Kiwi killed her first rodent.It was quite a feat.
I looked out the window and saw her crouching on a pile of rocks with an animal dangling from her mouth, and her ears laid back, and a very confused expression on her face. I went out to see what was going on. The rodent - probably a vole - dark brown and larger than a mouse but with a short tail - was still alive, dangling from her jaw, occasionally moving its legs. She kept uttering a deep, gutteral growl - aarrrrooooowwarrrhh - and looking very confused. Clearly, she was engaged in instinctual behaviour, which her rational mind was having problems comprehending.
There was no reason to kill the rodent. She wasn't hungry. It wasn't attacking her. But it was a rodent, and she is a cat, so there you are.
Her tail was fluffed up like a squirrel, and she was trying to back away from the rodent, but since it was dangling from her jaw, she couldn't back away from it.
From time to time she would lift her paw to push at it, but then would realize that she did not want it to get away, so she'd put her paw back down, perplexed.
I closed the screen door so she could not bring it inside, and hunkered down inside the screen door, watching her.
She dropped it a couple of times, but pounced on it immediately, and resumed growling at it, with a deep gutteral growl. The rodent wasn't dead, and I was feeling pity for it.
I tried to shove Arthur, the mighty hunter, out the door, hoping he would dispatch the rodent, but he resisted shoving, and stayed inside.
Lizzie, the Golden Retriver, who idolizes Kiwi, sat next to her, watching everything closely.
I decided to get my camera so I could record the kill shot, but by the time I found a clean diskette, and returned, the rodent was dead.
Kiwi was thumping it around, picking it up in her teeth and thumping it back down, back and forth. Then Lizzie picked it up in her teeth and walked off with it, so I gathered up Kiwi and brought her inside, praising her for becoming a mighty huntress, part of the pack.
She seemed disgruntled for having her prey taken away from her. When I put her down and closed the door, she mewed at me with frustration, and kept scratching at the door to be let out again to retrieve her dead rodent. But after a few hours, she gave up, and is now sleeping peacefully at my feet. |
