Here in Florida, we have Lizards. Lots of Lizards. My cats find it amusing to chase, catch and snap the tails of said Lizards, and, leave them around the house to petrify. Usually under the bed. I wish they had the same interest in bugs as your cats. Then the Lizards and the Cats would be on the same page.

I love my cats even if they do sometimes bring in live snakes. They just do it because they love me.

If your kitty really loved you, he'd leave dead baby bunnies by your back door, like mine does.

We have moles that dig up our lawn, and my cat, Sophie, kills them off for us.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across What Jeff Killed, which documents in loving and quite gruesome photographic detail the various reptilian and rodentian meals (or, more accurately, scraps left behind after such meals) of a large orange tabby named Jeff. Quite impressive.

My own large orange tabby, Elvis, used to have similar talents, but, being a cat, he never understood that discretion was sometimes the better part of valor. And, being a cat, unfortunately I was not able to teach him in advance that a rattlesnake might just be a little beyond his capabilities: he had to learn the hard way. I miss that little bastard.

My mom's kitty once brought her an entire groundhog.

I suppose I'm lucky it wasn't a lizard or a rat. Though one day it might be. PT is an amazing hunter.

As I tried to get a photo of the damn thing, Puff was SO pleased with himself. Rubbing up against my ankles, chattering.

That insect looks like a type of wasp known around here as a "cicada killer." It supposedly has quite a painful sting.

Fortunately, my cat prefers to catch geckos.

Kato my Siamese is the farthest thing from a feline. Birds scare him, and rodents give him the creeps. He hates being outside by himself but once he realizes that I'm not letting him in until he does his business he oft times tries to pal up with a neighbors dachsund. But the dog is old and wants no part of anything near him, let alone the dumbest cat alive. Oh yeah, and he loves swimming. So when people ask me if I'm a cat-person I really haven't a clue as I've never owned a real one.

I have to agree with you on this 100%, Ffolkes. One of the sweetest gifts I ever got was a decapitated jackrabbit corpse in my toolbox from my wiry old calico, Kiddo. All she kept for herself was the severed head, in her bowl, the look of terror still frozen in its blood-spattered face. Guess you didn't see that one coming, did you Fiver!

I had a cat once that I took a mouse away from, as I always used to be paranoid about my animals catching something that might have been poisoned. After I got it from here, I gave her some balogna to make it up to her. The next day she comes up to me with a piece of hot dog that she'd gotten out of somebody's trash can, and laid it on the ground in front of me, then looked up at me expectantly. I swear she looked like she was smiling at me. Cats are a hell of a lot smarter than a lot of people realize.

Yeah, cats are smart. When I was 7 my mom was going through some mid-life thing, and decided to adopt a calico, which she named Precious. Precious was so precious that my very smart mother didn't think it was that important to get her fixed. Boy, that poor cat had so many litters, that I began to feel like that Native American Italian guy with the tear running down his cheek. Her last litter took place next to my head while I was asleep, which was obviously a cry for help. She finally took her to the vet.

Jason, that sounds like another story I heard about a Calico a friend of mine used to have. The minute the cat had her litter, she deposited each kitten, one at a time, at her feet. She left them there, would have nothing to do with them. Maybe your cat was doing something similar. Calicos might not make the best mothers, my aunts calico also had litters that she seemed to grow too quickly detached from, weaning them much too quickly.

WHY I HATE CATS

Believe it or not, I was reincarnated. I still have vivid memories of when I was enslaved by the ancient Egyptians in my previous life.

The Egyptian army invaded my homeland because they wanted to recapture some cats that were smuggled out of their empire by fur traders. That is when I was forced into slavery.

To the Egyptians, cats were revered as gods. In ancient Egyptian law, if someone killed a cat, accidentally or not, the penalty was death.

One night, when my affluent master's home was set ablaze, I was ordered to safely retrieve a litter of newborn kittens from the rooftop of his 3-story dwelling, or if I failed, face execution. With only second-degree burns, I got to the roof and lowered them all down in a fur sack with some rope made of animal hair. Unfortunately, the protruding flames from the lower stories severed my rope so that it wouldn't be long enough for me to climb back down.

I knew, at that moment, that I was condemned to rot in Bastet's hell. My master, his family, and his neighbors were so preoccupied with ensuring the welfare of those kittens that they didn't bother throwing up another rope, getting a ladder, or at least something to cushion my fall if I jumped off the burning roof. I forgot what exactly my last moments were like, but if I were to have done it all over again, I would rather have endured execution than being flayed alive for the sake of saving Chinese ingredients.

Now, don't you people understand me?! Your infatuation with these domesticated hellspawn makes me sick!

The good news, for me, is that the karmic circle eventually came to a close for my former overseers....at Pelusium. Those superstitious retards, the Egyptians, surrendered almost instantly when the Persians brought a plethora of cats onto the battlefield, for fear that they would kill some of their gods incarnate. It's a relief that the Egyptians finally got some sanity and dedicated their lives to a pedophile moongod instead of cats.

I don't know whether or not you're pulling our collective legs,Spanky, interesting story though that is, but there's a good reason the ancient Egyptians worshipped cats. They saw them as responsible for their stores of grain not being overrun by rodents. If it weren't for cats there might have been a lot of years that would have seen the starvation of a lot of Egyptians at one time.

In fact, I've always believed that the sphinx that stood guard over the necropolis at Gaza sybolized a cat, not a lion, with the head of a man.

For that reason, I have to disagree with you despite your unfortunate incarnation, which would not have been the fault of the cats, but their overly fanatic masters. Still, I would think Bast to be a much more useful and benign deity than the "pedophile moongod" they have now.

Where the more radical of the one might be flying airplanes into buildings, I can't imagine a Bast worshipper engaging in terrorism. If they were to do so, how would they go about it? Piss in peoples flower gardens? Claw up their furniture?

You are in the Nile, Patrick! IN THE NILE!

Spanky, ain't that supposed to be in Da Nile? Now I have that Pam Tillis song running through my head, so yeah, I guess I am.

We've lost 8 cats in the last 10 years (mostly strays). Now we have none. We're using this window of opportunity to replace the living room rug and couch. Then it's time to look for another pair.

If your cat brings home dead game and leaves it for you it means that your cat does not believe you can fend for yourself. While this is a nice gesture from the cat, it says something about the human.

^ Bullshit.

Sammy, I'm not that familiar with cat behavoir, but I'm sure social work ain't their bag.

'Tis true. Our little Pooky once very proudly brought half a mole to my wife, and kept nudging her until she acknowledged his "gift." His way of saying "thanks" for all the Greenie Treats...

Our kitty-sitter sent a cellphone pic while we were in Jamaica last month -- the little one (3 months old) caught a mouse!

I felt like we'd missed baby's first step :(

Miss you, sweet girl,

Suli