The quest to cur­tail the killer cat con­tin­ues with the addi­tion of a ‘CatBib’

The ‘Cat­Bib’ has arrived and already, it has cur­tailed the killer cat.

The con­cept is not exactly rocket sci­ence. Made out of a sort of light­weight rub­bery fab­ric, it attaches to the cat’s col­lar by means of Vel­cro. Invented by a ‘bird-feeding, cat lover’ in Spring­field, Ore­gon, USA, the device seems to be doing the trick.

The bib’s suc­cess is explained thus: “it works by gen­tly inter­fer­ing with the cat’s pre­cise tim­ing and co-ordination skills needed for suc­cess­ful bird hunt­ing. The ‘Cat­Bib’ is broad at the bot­tom and so when the cat lifts its paws to catch the bird, it simul­ta­ne­ously lifts the ‘Cat­Bib’ which is then between the cat and the bird. It works by using the sim­ple prin­ci­ple of ‘get­ting in the way’.

And get in the way it does. For­tu­nately, Dex­ter was quite accus­tomed to a col­lar but the addi­tion of a bib did not exactly have him meow­ing with excite­ment; quite the con­trary. At first, he required two peo­ple to attach the for­eign object and after sev­eral days, still shows rather robust resis­tance when we approached him wield­ing the said bib.

I am pleased to report, how­ever, that once ‘bibbed up’, his first foray into hunt­ing was rather dis­mal. His killer moves were some­what impeded by the blue and pur­ple appari­tion hang­ing from his col­lar. Rather than mov­ing with stealth, he devel­oped a rather pro­nounced march—a bit like a snow leop­ard nego­ti­at­ing thick, pow­dery snow.

As the days progress, he is show­ing slightly less rebel­lion when hav­ing the bib attached and instead, seems to have acquired an atti­tude of snooty resignation.

I wouldn’t say he’s sulk­ing, but he’s def­i­nitely miffed. The bumph that came with the bib did warn of some cat tricks:

”Sulk­ing is one of the great­est of the cat’s tools for mak­ing the owner remove the ‘Cat­Bib’. Lock­ing your cat indoors if he sulks is an effec­tive train­ing method. He will soon asso­ciate the ‘Cat­Bib’ with going outside.”

The inven­tor even pro­vides tes­ti­mo­ni­als: This, from ‘Phillip, Meshop­pen, PA’: “The birds and chip­munks are very happy now that Louie has his ‘Cat­Bib’. He even waits at the door for his bib because he knows the bib means OUT TIME!”

Or this from Robert in New Zealand: “Bar­ney was pulling in sev­eral birds a week until we got his ‘Cat­Bib’ on. We have not seen any more killing since. He still man­ages to race around and climb trees so the ‘Cat­Bib’ doesn’t hin­der him at all, and he loves to get a good neck scratch­ing when we take his col­lar off at night.”

There is even some sci­en­tific evi­dence pro­vided. Accord­ing to Mur­doch Uni­ver­sity, Perth, WA, School of Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences and Biotech­nol­ogy, the bib stopped 81% of cats from catch­ing birds, 45% from catch­ing mam­mals and 33% from catch­ing herpto­fauna (an area of zool­ogy cov­er­ing the study of amphib­ians and reptiles).

While this data is impres­sive, unfor­tu­nately, I do think Dex­ter would still catch one of our pet Silkies if given the oppor­tu­nity to do so. He stalks them with a steely resolve, bib and all and had I not resorted to squirt­ing him with the hosepipe, I have no doubt he would be tuck­ing into a cock­erel by now.

And then, I fear, the bib would indeed have other uses …

PS … the ‘Cat­Bib’ is undoubt­edly a run­away suc­cess in the true sense of the word. It has gone, you see, together with accom­pa­ny­ing col­lar and bell. It no doubt lies hooked on some fence deep in the bush­land sur­round­ing our home. Timeously, the ‘Lib­er­a­tor Cat Col­lar’, another online pur­chase promis­ing suc­cess in cur­tail­ing killer cats, has arrived at our front door in a promis­ing package.

How­ever, it is prov­ing not to be s after all.

The ‘Lib­er­a­tor Cat Col­lar’ is designed to send off a sig­nal when­ever our nat­ural born killer lurches to attack. Birds are said to scat­ter when they hear it’s finely tuned beep.

It sits quite snugly on a com­fort­able col­lar and there were no protests when we acti­vated the device.

Days went by and our ruse seemed to be work­ing. And then beau­ti­ful, angelic look­ing Dex­ter emerged one fine morn­ing with another bird flap­ping weakly in his mouth. He gave me one defi­ant look before dis­ap­pear­ing into the bush with his booty.

So it seems the ‘Lib­er­a­tor Cat Col­lar’ is not so bird lib­er­at­ing after all. Our cat is a killer and that’s that. We have resorted once again to a bell – three bells, actu­ally. We have exhausted every avenue. Short of caging him for good, the bells will have to suffice.

It’s a case of ding dong bell, Pussy’s on the prowl …

© 2011 Lois Nicholls