Any cat owner (cat owned?) has heard/seen this: the chittering toothy noise cats make when they stare out the window at a bird.
Why do cats chatter their teeth? Answer: they want to kill.
Seriously. They want to kill that bird they're staring at. The chattering noise & movement is an imitation of the cat's kill bite. When a cat hunts, after she catches her prey and has it securely in her paws, she bites down on the critter's neck. The rapid jaw movement is how the cat severs the prey animal's spinal cord, killing it instantly. This allows the cat to eat its meal without risking injury. It's also nicer than munching on the critter while it's still alive.
That's right. That cute teeth chattering noise we all love is our cat imitating his/her kill bite. Isn't that sweet?
Thursday, July 7, 2011
More Cat Antics
This one's from when Hide and Seek were kittens--maybe 5 or 6 months old. Looking back on it, it's funny, but at the time it was traumatic! I had venetian blinds in my bedroom. The kittens, of course, lo-o-o-oved batting at the cord. I tried to have it tied up out of their reach, but they managed to pull it down. I was lying in bed one night when I heard the most horrific yowling you can imagine coming from across the room. Thinking that some hairy, drooling monster was attacking, I jumped out of bed.
No, it wasn't a monster. Hide was hanging--by his tail--from the curtain cord. I don't know how he managed to get it so tangled around his tail, but there he was, dangling from the blinds like an ornament. If ornaments thrashed and shrieked.
The moral of this story? Kittens can get into trouble you think you've prevented. Oh, and DON'T leave any possibility of reachable strings!
Our next story is from a few months later. Hide and Seek were 8 months old. I was living in a new apartment. This apartment is a basement apartment in a house that's surrounded by woods. One night shortly after I moved in, I was in bed (hmmm...there's a theme here) and I heard Hide and Seek playing with a plastic bag. No surprise; I wasn't finished unpacking, and there was stuff all around for them to get into. Cats love plastic bags. So the crinkling was to be expected, right? I ignored it for a while, figuring they were just being cats. After 15 minutes or so, I got tired of listening to the racket, so I got up to take the bag away from them. That's when I discovered that it wasn't really the bag they were playing with.
No, it was the SNAKE writhing around ON the bag that they were interested in. That's right, there was a SNAKE IN MY APARTMENT. Okay, it was a small snake (probably around 18 inches, and pretty skinny), and it was a harmless garden snake, but still--it was a SNAKE IN MY APARTMENT. After a moment of freaking out (I think I was justified), I used the plastic bag as a glove and picked the snake up by the tail. Fortunately, it was tired of being batted at by the kittens, so it let me carry it to the door and toss it outside with minimal fuss. Hide and Seek were disappointed that I took away their exciting new toy, though.
Since the Snake Incident, I've found some mice, various bugs, etc. in the apartment, but no more snakes. (The snake, by the way, did not seem to be hurt when I took it outside. I don't think that the kittens knew anything about hunting; they were just batting at a fun "interactive" toy.)
Can you beat that cat story?
No, it wasn't a monster. Hide was hanging--by his tail--from the curtain cord. I don't know how he managed to get it so tangled around his tail, but there he was, dangling from the blinds like an ornament. If ornaments thrashed and shrieked.
The moral of this story? Kittens can get into trouble you think you've prevented. Oh, and DON'T leave any possibility of reachable strings!
Our next story is from a few months later. Hide and Seek were 8 months old. I was living in a new apartment. This apartment is a basement apartment in a house that's surrounded by woods. One night shortly after I moved in, I was in bed (hmmm...there's a theme here) and I heard Hide and Seek playing with a plastic bag. No surprise; I wasn't finished unpacking, and there was stuff all around for them to get into. Cats love plastic bags. So the crinkling was to be expected, right? I ignored it for a while, figuring they were just being cats. After 15 minutes or so, I got tired of listening to the racket, so I got up to take the bag away from them. That's when I discovered that it wasn't really the bag they were playing with.
No, it was the SNAKE writhing around ON the bag that they were interested in. That's right, there was a SNAKE IN MY APARTMENT. Okay, it was a small snake (probably around 18 inches, and pretty skinny), and it was a harmless garden snake, but still--it was a SNAKE IN MY APARTMENT. After a moment of freaking out (I think I was justified), I used the plastic bag as a glove and picked the snake up by the tail. Fortunately, it was tired of being batted at by the kittens, so it let me carry it to the door and toss it outside with minimal fuss. Hide and Seek were disappointed that I took away their exciting new toy, though.
Since the Snake Incident, I've found some mice, various bugs, etc. in the apartment, but no more snakes. (The snake, by the way, did not seem to be hurt when I took it outside. I don't think that the kittens knew anything about hunting; they were just batting at a fun "interactive" toy.)
Can you beat that cat story?
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