Our cat is a killer.

There, I’ve con­fessed. My biggest fears have been realised and he’s brought home his booty like the proud killer he is.

I have taken one injured bird to the vet and another died while cush­ioned in a box filled with the soft­est shred­ded paper—the oth­ers, I’m afraid, were too far gone to rescue.

For years, I fought against my daughter’s pleas of own­ing a cat—resisted the adorable charms of kit­tens in pet shop win­dows or star­ing with unbear­able cute­ness from adopt-a-kitten web­sites. I was proud of my steely resolve not to suc­cumb. All along, I knew these adorable balls of fluff even­tu­ally turned into killers.

Of course I gave in. It was surely serendip­i­tous that I hap­pened to be vis­it­ing my son’s friend at the very same time her cat had just had kittens?

So we acqui­esced and gained own­er­ship of a soft, adorable gin­ger and white part-ragdoll, part-tabby kit­ten. But even adorable fluff balls even­tu­ally suc­cumb to their instincts.

A few months later, he was a fine-tuned killing machine as pre­dicted. After cor­ner­ing a squir­rel glider out­side my bed­room win­dow one night, I resolved Dex­ter would have a night-time cur­few, no mat­ter how loudly he yowled for free­dom. The glider was thank­fully untouched and fled but I couldn’t bear the thought of future wan­ton killing sprees in the dead of night.

Dex­ter was curbed at night-time but had free reign dur­ing the day. And that’s when he went hunt­ing. Apart from being trau­ma­tised every time he brought home his catch, I also felt incred­i­bly guilty. If our cat was killing a few birds a week, how many more fell vic­tim to neigh­bour­hood cats allowed to prowl the bush at night? There was surely cat car­nage out there.

So I took mat­ters into my own hands and Googled “how to stop my cat from eat­ing birds”. I was instantly rewarded with a num­ber of solutions—none of them ter­ri­bly convincing.

One cat lover sug­gested cats need to snack at inter­vals dur­ing the day and would only kill wildlife if rav­en­ously hun­gry. Well, I beg to dif­fer, given that our cat is rather well cov­ered with a ram­pant appetite. He has been known to rip open bags of dog food after meal­time and heartily tuck in so I can pretty well count out hunger as an excuse for hunting.

Most other advice involved attach­ing a bell to his col­lar. Been there done that. Short of acquir­ing a cow bell, this was not a viable solu­tion. It had not curbed his killing one bit.

Finally, I came across a site sell­ing a device that fit­ted around the neck like a col­lar. Endorsed by a well-known Aus­tralian enter­tainer, it was designed to emit a shrill sound intol­er­a­ble to birds. Cats could mer­rily stalk their prey, but the imper­cep­ti­ble sound would alert birds who could take flight with­out being caught. Des­per­ate for a quick solu­tion, I ordered immediately.

Min­utes after my pur­chase, how­ever, I had buyer’s regret. My hus­band informed me my rev­o­lu­tion­ary device was, in fact, a dud. And if the tes­ti­monies by other hap­less buy­ers were to be believed, this was not exactly a winner.

Instead, a fool-proof cat bib was rec­om­mended. I watched com­i­cal footage of cats with the ungainly, colour­ful bibs dan­gling from their necks—apart from look­ing absurd, the bibs really did appear to do the trick. You try spring­ing with feline agility while a large, floor-to– neck bib trips you up. I have ordered one of those too, so in a few days’ time, dear, fluffy, adorable killer Dex­ter, you are in for a treat.

I reckon the only killing you’ll be doing is that bag of dog food that lies stealth­ily hid­den in the garage…

Sequel: Killer cat cur­tailed by CatBib

© 2011 Lois Nicholls