A Taste of Blood

Cats will be cats.  Even so my 40 pounds of housecat.  I mention this in light of a Facebook post by my mountain friends Patti and Tom.  A juvenile bobcat recently accessed and killed ten of their laying hens.

Not good.

My 40 pounds of housecat have generally been little more than playful regarding hunting.  They have never caught a bird.  If they happen to corner a mouse, they tend to simply tinker around with the poor critter until I can sweep it into a pot (or some more expedient equivalent) and haul it away for distant release.

Clearly, my cats are incredibly fat and would likely be considered somewhat incompetent by their kind.

Just this morning, however, that changed with 20 pounds of housecat.  I let Splash out into the early darkness, as is often his want.  He is not crazy about winter but likes to wander around and sniff at things for a few minutes.  After perhaps five minutes, he appeared at the backdoor again and hunkered down with his flank pressed against the glass.

When I opened the door, he backed away.  I saw a mouse clamped in his mouth.  I saw blood.  He crunched down on the mouse, chewed.  When I took a step outside, Splash slunk away into the immediate darkness, guarding his prey, crunching.

A taste of blood.

A cat is born.

--Mitchell Hegman