Animals do what animals do and it isn’t always what we want. They are wired for hunting and that’s just the way it is. When I was about 9-10 years old our cat killed 3 wild bunnies. I held funerals with my friend Mary Jo for any dead creature that I came across and buried them all around the house where I grew up. I used Popsicle sticks in the form of a cross to mark the burial sites. When the bunnies were killed I was going through a phase where I labeled the “coffins” (usually a shoe box) with information about the date and species, thinking archaeologists in the future would want to know. Ha! What can I say, I watched a lot of Natural Geographic growing up!
This time however, I thought a glass jar would be an even better coffin for keeping the bodies and the information more intact. I took the bunnies and wrapped them in Kleenex and put them in a jar with the label inside, and put the jar on a lower shelf between the backdoor and kitchen, then I went to get something…
About a week later I heard a scream from the kitchen and I ran downstairs and heard my Mom say, “WHAT – IS – IT!” as she closed lid on the jar. I said, “Oh, sorry Mom those are the (+/- week old) dead bunnies”. Then I sheepishly went and had the funeral in a hurry.
I guess people do what people do and it isn’t always what we want either!
P.S. This cat was not a big hunter…more of a big sleeper! He was a very gentle soul and wouldn’t even harm our hamsters. The incident with the bunnies was pretty unusual for him.
Animal Stories 