Killer kats

I like cats. Not enough to be a crazy cat lady, but I just like one or two that wander around and make me feel needed by shouting at me when it's dinner time. What I don't like, though, is the pile of dead wildlife that turns up on the door step. I know they're meant to be presents from the cats: 'Hi, I like you, have a mangled rodent.' But today, Merlin left a tiny, beautiful little shrew for me to find. And it wasn't dead. Perhaps he thought he was being nice to me: 'I'll leave her a half-dead animal that she can enjoy killing.' My grandmother would be horrified, but I like mice and rats and associated mammals, so seeing this squirming little animal made me want to kill the cat.  

I know Mother Nature is supposedly red in tooth and claw, but sometimes She pushes my patience. Scooping this fragment of life into an old Chinese takeaway tub, I tried to pluck up the courage to kill it quickly, but failed. Instead, I watched helplessly as it twisted and gasped before it finally curled up into a little ball and died. As an adoring fan of Terry Pratchett, I then imagined the Death of Rats turning up, complete with robe and scythe, to send the little soul on its way. The murderous cat, being let outside again, sniffed around the patio as if to say, 'I'm sure I left a shrew around here somewhere....'

I remember when The Daughter was ill, several years ago, she was lying on our sofa-bed with a raging temperature. Our cat, Parker (short for Nosy Parker) thought she needed looking after and kindly killed a rat for her, laying it gently next to her pillow. So kind. (Ironically, as I'm writing this, Son Number Two has come to inform me that Merlin has a dead rat hanging from his jaws.) Bloody animals, they're worse than infants. My friend's cat once brought in a live squirrel, depositing it in her dining room, where it raced up the bookshelves and disappeared into a big vase. 

I would actually like a dog. Well, I like the idea of having a dog, which is very different. We were loaned a friend's labradoodle while they were on holiday, a couple of years ago. It was called Dory, after the Finding Nemo character, and it was most apt, as I've never met a dafter dog. Its joy in life was chasing tennis balls and walking for miles and miles (and miles...) through the forest. When it saw me, it went completely goofy and would leap around and act like an idiot. As a dog, it was a bit of an embarrassment. Its tongue would hang out of the side of its mouth, and I wanted to tell it to pull itself together and have a bit of pride. If we met other dog-walkers in the forest, I would quickly explain that this was not actually our dog, it belonged to a friend, to save people thinking that we would own such a lunatic.

Merlin has become an expert mole killer, which delights The Husband (he's a gardener, though you wouldn't know it from the state of our garden), but disgusts me. I do, however, like the opportunity to examine such wildlife at close-quarters. Although dead moles make me sad, I now know how amazing their fur is, in that it grows straight up, making it easier for the little animals to move which ever way they want to in their tunnels. Shrews have the tiniest little teeth you can imagine, and their noses are so long. Rats are not just grey - they are an amazing speckling of black and white, although their tails are a bit creepy. Mice have beautifully shaped faces, which make me wish I could draw. 

I completely understand a current year 6 girl who takes home decomposing hedgehogs and dead birds so she can cut them up and work out how they function. She comes to school and tells me how big a pigeon's brain is, and I share her fascination, while others pretend to be sick. 

She's either going to be a great surgeon, or a mass murderer. Watch this space....