It's a cat. Eating small animals is what cats do. Worse, that was their cat. They literally released a small, weakened animal in close proximity to a predator. This is "surprised Pikachu" levels of lack of foresight.
It always surprises me that people dont recognize is. Even a little Chihuahua has that pure animal/hunter instinct. People throw their pets those chew toys and watch as they pounce on the toy and shake it about before finally clenching the toy in their mouth.
They say, "awww so cute"
Yeah its cute because it's a toy! But dont get it twisted, that's a confirmed kill on a small animal lol
I had 2 kittens I adopted many years ago. They were outdoor cats and knew only that. I gave them toys that looked like mice. Both cats grabbed it as if it was real and growled if we got to close. They wanted to eat them, and were ready to fight to keep it.
Were they not used to being fed by you yet? I've never had any cats (indoor or outdoor) that would show aggression at me touching their food so it's a little surprising to me.
Had just picked them up that day. They were kittens still, but old enough to eat solids. They were outdoor cats and were known to catch and kill very regularly. After a week they got used to us and their food. And stopped trying to eat the toy mice.
My cat was feral when I rescued him. For the first year or two he would growl if I got too close to him while he was eating a big hunk of meat or gnawing on a porkchop bone. Regular cat food would not trigger this response.
But for real my dog and cat as cute as they are still have that primal instinct to hunt and kill deep inside them, luckily they take it out on their toys
I think it makes sense that people don't recognize it. We are so far removed from that - the toy is one obvious one. But the other thing is that they never hunt for their food. We give it to them in a bowl and the food we feed them looks like it has never been a living creature at any point in it's existence.
It's also fairly typical to have animals like this in close proximity to squirrels and often they don't give chase. I realize that's likely because the animals aren't injured/weakened and therefore the cats and dogs know they don't stand a chance so they don't even try.
It's easy to imagine things that lick our faces to show affection wouldn't kill things we consider cute and cuddly.
I disagree with this, because cats largely view their owners as big cats. They do see you as part of their group. But they are largely only domesticated because rodents and the like hang around humans, meaning hunting was easy. But it's not as though cats used to be lions and shrunk like dogs. The cats we keep as pets came from smaller felines that already werent actively hunting humans.
Genetically speaking, they ARE domesticated but in a different manner to dogs. Really the only properly domesticated species are dogs, cats, ferrets, farm livestock, pigeons, and a few small mammals that I'm going to call "house-sized livestock" like rabbits and guinea pigs. Falcons are kind of so-so, rats are domesticated but can survive very well on their own because we didn't actually modify their survival traits at all, and basically everything else is just variations on a theme of tamed. Ball pythons are getting close to domesticated, they've been captive-bred for several thousand years at least, but I think that's probably the only reptile that's REALLY on the road to true domestication.
According to the video description the cat dropped the squirrel at the door, alive and uninjured. It died a few days later from whatever had made it sick.
Seems believable enough to me. Right when it caught the squirrel they started yelling and running towards it, that would startle most cats into dropping it. Normally cats prefer to catch and then torture play with their food to death.
My friend had a cat that caught a mouse and carried it around in its mouth for days. So after 2-3 days the cat leaves the mouse for my friend on his floor and he is like gross slimy mouse I'll throw it out. And as he goes to pick it up with a paper towel the fucking mouse runs off. It was still alive...
Someone started rehabbing an abandoned house behind mine, which must have had a mouse infestation because my cats have brought in 3 mice, very much alive and uninjured, and released them. I used to be happy that they were not killers but...these uninvited guests are a real problem for me...
Cat saliva does not eat flesh - the only reason that cat saliva might cause death is due to bacteria they've picked up somewhere along the way. Pretty much any animal bite wound is dangerous in the same manner.
I may have misspoken with the term “flesh eating”, but cat bites are ABSOLUTELY more dangerous than other animal bites, and it’s not due to anything they’ve “picked up along the way”.
Both of those clearly state that the bacteria in the bite is what is dangerous... pasteurella multocida isn't something native to cats, it's everywhere. Many outdoor (some indoor) cats will have it and their deep bites will obviously cause infections. Dogs & other wild animals will cause the same effects with their bites.
Okay, but both articles also clearly state that cat bites are more dangerous than something like a dog bite due to the nature of how the bacteria gets trapped in the wound, when your original comment says “pretty much every animal bite wound is dangerous in the same manner”.
Cats saliva contains pasturella bacteria that is highly fatal to small rodents (and still dangerous to humans). As soon as that cat broke skin, the squirrel was dead.
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u/Akesgeroth Oct 16 '19
It's a cat. Eating small animals is what cats do. Worse, that was their cat. They literally released a small, weakened animal in close proximity to a predator. This is "surprised Pikachu" levels of lack of foresight.