Nature red in tooth and claw

[devi]

It's official, the cats hate me now. They are crouching behind me, looking balefully at me and hissing. I committed an unforgivable sin. I took away Winston's prey.

He came in and started to scuffle around behind the sofa. I thought he might be playing with the dice I gave him. I had a look down there but saw nothing moving. So I went into the kitchen and then, in the corner of my eye, I saw a mouse sprinting for freedom down the hallway, Winston in hot pursuit. I opened the door to let it out and closed it before the cat caught up. "Run, mouse, run!" I said. I hoped the delay while the cat got over his confusion and out through the cat flap would be enough. It wasn't. He strutted back in with the mouse in his mouth and proceeded to bat it about, swing it by its tail and other foul tortures. Now I love cats, but I also have great affection for mice and rats and I sure as heck wasn't going to watch one be beaten and nibbled to death in front of me. I pulled him away by his tail. He was alive, but there was a large hole in his neck. I wrapped the poor little guy up in a copy of Property Weekly and took him out to the roadside to die with dignity. But one horrible thought remains. Would you have had the guts to put him out of his misery? I certainly didn't.

"Mew," says Winston accusingly, and goes out slamming the door. He's a teenager, all right. Oh, hang on, he's back and on my lap. No one ever said cats were consistent.

Comments

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

It depends on how big the hole in his neck was. If it was a horrible gash, yes, I would have.

*But*. I/we have fancy rats, which means we always have the means for a painless rodent death on-hand. (I'd say roughly two-thirds of our rats have needed to be put to sleep after the hours that vet offices are usually open). So it'd be easy for me--much easier than it would have been for you, I think.

[juliet]

I was about to ask how you manage that (I have pet rats, as well, & although have only had to go to emergency out-of-hours vet to have a rat put to sleep once, I would *far* rather do it at home anyway as a general rule :-/ ), but then looked at your userinfo & you're in the US where medical rules etc are rather different. Ah well.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Let's put it this way: our vet trusts us enough to prescribe stuff to us that other vets might not.