Tortie Tuesday: How to Discourage Cats from Offering You Mice

(This article appeared on Associated Content about ten years ago. A local funder paid for it to be revised and updated. Please use the payment options in the "greeting" post to fund more informative posts. The photo below is an Amazon link to a blank book with a cat photo on the cover.)



Why do cats bring gross-out "gifts" like dead mice to their human friends and how can we stop it?

Humans who've watched cats observe that they offer these gifts to friends - other cats, humans, and sometimes other animals. There seem to be a variety of possible messages that can be communicated by a gift of something a cat might or might not consider edible. Here are some of the possibilities.

1. Parent cat brings dead or wounded prey to kitten. Probable message: "You need to learn to hunt for yourself. Here is something to practice on."

2. Adolescent cat brings dead or wounded prey to parent. Probable message: "See how much I've learned."

3. Adult cat brings prey to another adult cat, often a prospective mate. Probable message: "I can be very nice to you if you're nice to me. You can even share my food."

4. Cat brings freshly killed prey that it considers edible to human. Probable message: "I love you so much that I'll even share food with you. Of course, I just ate one of these things, so I'm not really hungry."

5. Cat brings wounded living prey to human. One possible message: "I can't deal with this one by myself. Please help." Another possible message: "I don't think this smells edible. What do you think?" Another possible message: "You're as clumsy and clueless as a two-month-old kitten, so I'll teach you how to hunt as if you were a two-month-old kitten." But when a cat did this to me, the message was clearly, "Since you think catching mice is so easy, let's see you do it!"

6. Cat brings wounded living prey to human who has shaped this behavior by reacting in a way the cat finds amusing. Probable message: "Do you humans get some pleasure out of your antics? Is climbing up on furniture and screaming part of a courtship routine you do before mating or something?"

7. Cat brings part of a large animal, often a tail, to human. Probable message: "I've eaten as much of this as I can. Would you like some?" Though one Cat Sanctuary volunteer thinks the message may sometimes be "Do you have a way to preserve this for me?"

8. Cat brings unusual prey to human, often uninjured. Outdoor cats bring lizards, terrapins, puppies; indoor cats bring crickets or roaches. Probable message: "I'm not sure what this is, how to kill it, or whether it needs killing. Maybe you have a suggestion?"

9. Cat brings tails and entrails to humans or other animals. Probable message: "Are you hungry? Could you use some leftovers?" I've known one cat who did this systematically enough to train our possums, or opossums, to come when she called them. She had noticed that the digestive systems of mice sometimes contained things she couldn't digest, and that possums ate the entrails without apparent ill effects.

10. Cat brings dead prey to human or other animal and plays with it, reenacting the hunt. Probable message: "See how I did it? Oh, clever me!"

The bottom line is, whichever of these messages may be intended, your cat is bringing you gross-out "gifts" because it likes you. Strategies that have worked for me have involved responding to the cat's nonverbal message in the way I would respond to a similar message from a human.

1. Always thank the cat politely, as you would do if a human friend brought a disgusting dish to a dinner party. Even if seeing shrimp on the table makes you want to call Leo's Pest Control, you would remember that some people think shrimp is a delicacy. Say, "Thank you! How thoughtful!"

2. Immediately offer the cat a food treat. I do this for several reasons. It communicates friendship and gratitude; it shows the cat that you're not in danger of starvation; and also it gives me time to remove and bury dead vermin. It's usually safe for country cats to eat mice and squirrels. It would be safe for them to eat healthy birds, but since cats catch healthy birds only in abnormal weather or while the birds are nesting, any bird a cat brings home should be burned or buried deep in the ground. Cats can't eat moles, voles, or shrews. I've never seen a cat try to eat these creatures. I think they catch them by mistake and bring them to humans upon noticing that they're not mice.

3. If the unusual prey is a baby bird, it's likely to be a ground-nesting bird. Sometimes young birds are pushed out of catproof nests in trees or cliffs because of illness, nest parasitism, or sibling rivalry, but it's more likely that a land-bound animal will catch a baby bird from a nest on the ground. Protect your local bird population by confining your cat(s) for a few weeks, to give the other nestlings a chance to mature.

4. After demonstrating appreciation of the cat's intentions, clean the steps, porch, whatever, and wash your hands. This, I suspect, is the real key. The cat prefers the smell of things it considers edible to the smell of disinfectant. You're communicating that you're going to enforce your own preferences, which are opposite to the cat's. The cat may continue to show you prey, especially if it's not sure what to do with something it's caught, but after a few demonstrations of your eccentricity the cat will probably stop dragging prey across your floor.

5. You can try discouraging the cat's interest in specific prey by mourning profusely over a bird, butterfly, mantis, etc. The cat will probably try to cheer you up, and may remember that you go into mourning when you see that kind of animal dead. This will not actually prevent the cat from killing other creatures of the same kind when you're not looking, so don't rely on this strategy to protect baby birds.

6. Cats who want your opinion about unusual prey are likely to be more social and intelligent than the average cat. (Bringing home unusual prey may require them to hunt as teams.) They can appreciate your input and learn that some animals, like terrapins, are Dangerous while others, like puppies, are Friends. This may be more than can be expected from most cats, but it's worked with most of the long-term residents at the Cat Sanctuary.

7. Persevere. Some cats, like Magic, are so devoted to their humans that if you tell them the birds in the hedge are friends they'll treat the birds like friends forever. Some cats, like Minnie, obviously think that if humans had brains we'd be dangerous, and will bring you unwanted gifts for two or three years before they give up hope of converting you to their point of view.

8. Be aware of a related problem: If abnormal conditions, such as abnormal humidity increasing the incidence of death from fungus infections in birds, allow cats to catch sick birds, you might receive the "gift" of cat vomit on the steps. This is still a sign of friendship. The message is, "I'm sick. Please help." Heed the message before you have a sickly cat.

9. Never set out poison for mice. Not only is this practice obscenely cruel to mice, it's also harmful to cats. Formulas advertised as harmless to cats, dogs, and children have been made non-fatal by the addition of an emetic to the poison. The cat will survive after ingesting these poisons, but will be less useful as a hunter since it has learned that eating its natural prey may make it extremely sick. Save money: put reusable mechanical traps for mice in places where the cats can't get them, and dispose of the mice in a reasonably quick, humane way.

10. If you really can't bear to think that a cat is an animal with a natural place in the environment, and is built to live primarily on things humans don't like to eat or look at, you may have to keep the cat indoors.