Fall is here and for human hunters, that means deer season and squirrel season. For a few, it might even mean duck or goose season. But for cats, it means cute woodland creature season.

So far, my two cats have found a way to slaughter a number of furry little critters.

I usually find at least pieces of the critter, possibly left as the cats’ justification for the outlay of further food resources from the house, in the flower bed in front of the house or on the back porch. Sometimes I am left playing, “Name that furry animal part.” I usually just throw whatever it is out of the yard and try not to think about it. Even so, I prefer those unpleasant pet finds to the other ones that I have found on my shoes. Yuck.

The black cat, which is the mother and is aptly named ‘Cat’, has never been a large-framed animal, but is a very effective hunter. She, in turn, has taught her daughter Callie, a calico born earlier this year, to do the same. As the mice and other creatures come nearer to man in search of heated spaces to winter, the cats are having a big time. So far, I have found dead moles, mice, chipmunks, rabbits, birds and part of what was either a rat or an opossum. Then again, it could have been a squirrel, but I don’t even want to ponder on that.

There is something less than appealing about watching the animal that occasionally licks the family’s hands devour half a chipmunk and leave parts of it laying next to your favorite parking space.

Of course, when it comes to devouring the local mouse and rat population, they’ll never hear a complaint out of me. It seems different eating more benign and cute forest creatures, like bunnies and songbirds. These cats are equal-opportunity killers. Sometimes they kill for food, I suppose, but usually it seems they kill for sport or some blood-thirsty survival instinct.

I have watched them team hunt, rounding a mouse up around the woodpile on my porch, each chasing it toward the other until it was within reach. They took it out in the yard and take turns slapping it around and jumping on it until the poor creature died of abuse. To be honest here, I should include another fact: Mice are only poor creatures when they die outside while being tortured by cats. I have had no mercy for them in the past when trapping them, poisoning them, smashing them or killing them in any other way possible.

That having been said, I didn’t intervene in the mouse murder perpetrated by my two frisky felines. It did pique my curiosity to watch the joy with which they played with the mouse, letting it get a head start in one direction, just enough to let it think it might escape, before pouncing on it or dragging it back into their reach with seemingly little effort. In my human way of looking at it, it is one thing to kill for food, but quite another to kill slowly by torture and humiliate. In the cat way of looking at it, it was a mother’s training exercise for future hunting expeditions.

I always imagine myself as a mouse in those circumstances. Well, not really a mouse, but as the victim of a large predator, like a tiger or lion. Even that would not be the equivalent of a mouse attacked by a cat, but it gives one more respect for their killing prowess. I sometimes see them spend hours watching a section of the field behind the house silently, just waiting for a victim’s movement to pounce and attack. I admire their patience.

On the way home, I saw the cats lounging in the sun, looking as innocent as a babe in a crib. Even then, as I watch their eyes and their movements, I still can get a glimpse of the wild animals the ancestors of my domestic cats were so many years ago. I’m just glad I’m not a mouse.

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