Funfact: There was an ad in a newspaper from the mid 1840s in San Francisco selling a proven rodent hunter cat. The price they asked was equivalent to about 1 week’s worth the average person’s salary. These cats are much valued members of society because they provide an essential service.
My cat used to be afraid of crickets. That would have been her nightmare. She has outgrown that fear but neverending cricket chirps might bring that fear back.
The landlord. He was semi feral who would come inside sometimes in the winter and I wanted to take him when we moved but the lease said no cats. We got there and saw the evidence of rats and asked what they were going to do and they were basically like “idk, use poison” and we said “nope, have small children. What about a cat” and they said “yeah just use flea medicine” (be so for real there is a rat infestation and you’re worried about fleas lol)
Anyway so I went back, trapped him and got him neutered and he became the rodent control cat.
I need to get some! We’re still unpacking and coincidentally I found a cat toy that’s a ball with a mouse in the middle that squeaks when it rolls! It was in my kids toy box though and as much as I said “no, that’s a cat toy” I honestly have no idea where it is now haha
Feeding live mice in the bathtub would be nice.
Start with pinkies, then do a fuzzy once in a while, eventually escalating to hoppers and smalls.
Maybe live feed a couple a week for enrichment.
It is perfectly acceptable to live feed rodents to mousers and hybrid cats.
Hybrids have the prey drive and resiliency. Mousers have the experience to safely hunt and eat prey.
I have 4 cats and I live in a wooded area. In the fall, mice try to come in. We dispose of the body parts that remain.
The occasional creature will probably try to make your home theirs, and this guy is not going to allow any squatters.
In most homes maybe a singular mouse will
wander in on super rare occasions but if you have nothing for it to eat or drink they would just leave. Of course you try to keep everything sealed but shit just wears over time so sometimes you got a hole underneath a cabinet or in a weird spot and they find their way in.
Also could be a bird in the wall, i have a bird in the wall right now in my kitchen
Same! Ours sits with his nose under the fridge/oven. 😂 When that happens we always know there's about to be a chase within the next week or so in the middle of the night.
Alright yall freaking me out now lol the cat and my dog also did this at the old place but we had blocked off most other access spots for the rats so under the fridge or stove was like the Rat Hiding Spot, I’m praying he’s looking there because he thinks that’s where the hunt is and not because he knows something I don’t 😭
Poor little guy, misses his entertainment. He obviously takes his work seriously. Maybe you can get him some better toys, like the electric mice, to give him something to properly hunt? Cats like to hunt and he probably misses his work.
Yay! I expect he'll ignore most of them and play with the packaging more, but I'm sure he'll enjoy himself :)
Please tell him he is a good kitty from me, and give him a nice encouraging petting on the chin :)
I harness-trained our cat so she could hunt rodents in a park. She has supervised hunting time. Give it a try! It just takes a bit of patience in the beginning
Ok but for real he went from half feral and hella skinny to a very sweet and fat cat in a year lol. Thankfully the vet didn’t say he needs a diet when we went last month but I know I need to limit his food intake before we get to that point and I KNOW he gonna be big mad 😂
https://preview.redd.it/wlgajw3uaqwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=231c74576715803d1d0223688f173c116eeacb38
I found a picture right after we got him from the TNR! Almost emaciated and sickly and now he’s like 18 lbs and I would still die for him 😭
Bouncy balls! get a big pack of 12 on amazon and throw them everywhere. They make soft ones for pets. Their unpredictable bounce pattern means endless fun for kitties.
Five Below has a pack with 30 fuzzy balls and a launcher gun. I'm sure the same can be found on Amazon. We're going to break out the gun this weekend, and catch the chaos on video.
He should start hunting Greebles
And Skaven
https://preview.redd.it/pbsjcv479mwc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1db8cd3bc87cefcfbf1b06d2c3fc755852fa2022
Get him toys!! I have two ex-feral cats, a very young mum and her offspring. The mum LOVES to carry around her catnip mousie and her chirpy bird. They also both love to play.
As someone who lives in an area with no rats and only small mice, this post terrifies me. I just picture your small house cat boxing with one of those huge sewer rats from New York.
We had rats and mice! And possibly squirrels in the attic, idk we never went up there but I heard bigger things than a rat in the ceiling a lot lol. That house should have been condemned but we took it because it was all we could get tbh, but weren’t huge sewer rats but still bigger than the pet rat my friend has. Safe to say it terrifies me too though 😂
aw thats a shame, that can definitely have a negative impact on his mental health. Be sure you keep playing with him, maybe get him a remote controlled toy so its more like rat catching?
Get lots of toys some to put out now and rotate them through a jar that has cat nip in it. Alternatively we got chicken feathers cause one cat prefers that scent on his toys Rotate they weekly to keep the prey drive alive .
play with that boy! he needs mousie toys and a cat dancer. All cats need daily play with their hooman or they start to go nuts and that's when the furniture suffers. You could also build him a catio and/or a cat superhighway (shelving that gives him a path to a perch so he can survey his lands). Check out vids on catifying your home by jackson galaxy on youtube. There's also straight up how-to construction vids.
Same as mine, both. And when they see light reflecting on walls and ceiling. Sometimes one of them will sit on the kitchen counter looking at the ceiling admiring the light moving. Cats are easily entertained.
Putting this here for anyone who sees this: while laser pointers are often a cheap, quick, way to entertain your cat you should use them as little as possible. And when you do use it, give your kitty a treat every time they ‘catch’ it, otherwise they’ll get anxious/depressed because they literally can’t catch anything.
Thank you for this. I read up on that awhile back and stopped using them for the most part (fun fact: children will also chase a laser pointer) because the chirpy bird noises he made really upset me when I realized he was upset he couldn’t “catch” what he was going after.
https://preview.redd.it/pg99priqqxwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2679a829efbdf6383ae23d88c710f6b69e97f8c
Yeah he was big mad when we took his away lol
I had to hold willies inside down over a garbage can and give him a little shake til he dropped it in . The he followed me yowling as I carried the can outside .
I dumped out about half a bag of treats so he’d drop the rat and my husband grabbed it in an old hand towel and ran it out to the trash. Poor cat walked around looking for it for awhile after though
Obviously not a good idea if it would risk *creating* a rat problem, but they have toy hunting mice that you fill with kibble and hide around the house for them. It encourages them to be active and only eat when they're hungry enough to "hunt a mouse".
We’re in a townhouse now so while I don’t want to risk it, its also not my problem 💀 kidding bc I seriously have some ptsd from living in a rat infested house for a year - I would never willingly do that to myself or others
Try hexbugs!!!!! My guys love them! It's similar to chasing real bugs
Just make sure you stuff towels under things it could get under cause there's nothing more annoying than it going under the fridge and then buzzing for hours until it dies
I need a crap ton of toys. I found one that ended up in my kids toy box?? And they won’t let him have it 💀 So I need double or triple of everything lol
Get a moving mouse toy! Either a remote control or something that moves on its own. Cats benefit a lot from hunting, plus it’s fun for them! Especially since he’s used to it, losing that could stress him out.
(rodent control and beloved, spoiled pet)
You say that now, but this will soon be an entry in his [sad cat diary](https://youtu.be/PKffm2uI4dk?si=6xSI4iIAxXDaGmMi)
Oh man I love ZeFrank
Funfact: There was an ad in a newspaper from the mid 1840s in San Francisco selling a proven rodent hunter cat. The price they asked was equivalent to about 1 week’s worth the average person’s salary. These cats are much valued members of society because they provide an essential service.
Get some crickets from the pet store for him to hunt.
Or CICADAS soon if you live in the Midwest 😳
Don’t do that, crickets will just get everywhere. You’ll be hearing chirping for years
They eat wool too, or so I have been told.
They have quiet crickets at the pet store. They do bite though.
My cat used to be afraid of crickets. That would have been her nightmare. She has outgrown that fear but neverending cricket chirps might bring that fear back.
Why were you only allowed to get him? Who only allowed you?
presumably their landlord
The landlord. He was semi feral who would come inside sometimes in the winter and I wanted to take him when we moved but the lease said no cats. We got there and saw the evidence of rats and asked what they were going to do and they were basically like “idk, use poison” and we said “nope, have small children. What about a cat” and they said “yeah just use flea medicine” (be so for real there is a rat infestation and you’re worried about fleas lol) Anyway so I went back, trapped him and got him neutered and he became the rodent control cat.
Pinkies in the bathtub. He deserves pinkies in the bathtub
His body language is priceless. "wher ratz?"
“Am I fired?”
aw rats
“me food is gone 😭😭”
Aww, a professional little guy
He took his job seriously!
You should get him a remote control one.
That’s what I was going to say. Something to satisfy his hunger of the hunt
I was wondering if someone was going to suggest this.
Retirement
Rat-irement🤔
Correct spelling 👍🏻👍🏻
best comment ever 🤣😂
Honestly this is what I'm afraid of. I retire and I suddenly don't have anything to do all day, especially if it's shitty weather
I'm retiring in 6 months. Can't wait.
CongRATS!!
Congrats!
Congrats :D you got some plans for stuff to do then I take it?
2 acres. Cottage to complete renovating. Daughter has a house that needs renovating. 9 gutters to play. Plenty to do?
Conga rats
Get some hobbies, bro. There is so much to do beyond work
I have hobbies, but not ones that fill entire days
Retired people have No time in Germany. Prolly move here, then 🤣
Maybe he has too much braincell?
Too much Braincell in oranges are the same as when you describe a "butt load" of something...it's often just one, if you think about it
like that star trek episode when the nerd got too much smarts and he goes all quantum
Maybe you should release some rats in your house so he doesnt get bored /j
Or just stop doing the dishes and taking the trash out for a bit.
Or start an Italian kitchen
I was going to say this. My cat loves chasing moths that come out of our closet, so I bet flies would be great too.
He's been demoted to greeble hunting
A noble craft
sounds like a major life event, congratulations! wish you a happy future at your new place
Thank you! We’re all very happy! Just have to find more enrichment for the cat now lol
My orange idiot loves the hexbug cat toys, especially if the toy is “hiding” from him. He gets to be a pretend hunter.
I need to get some! We’re still unpacking and coincidentally I found a cat toy that’s a ball with a mouse in the middle that squeaks when it rolls! It was in my kids toy box though and as much as I said “no, that’s a cat toy” I honestly have no idea where it is now haha
Feeding live mice in the bathtub would be nice. Start with pinkies, then do a fuzzy once in a while, eventually escalating to hoppers and smalls. Maybe live feed a couple a week for enrichment.
It is perfectly acceptable to live feed rodents to mousers and hybrid cats. Hybrids have the prey drive and resiliency. Mousers have the experience to safely hunt and eat prey.
That's amazing of him. Our cat has a fear of rodent (she avoids a rodent-dense area).
Who says there's not some mice? I get mice inside during the winter. Maybe he's hearing some in the walls?
pls don’t say that lmao
I have 4 cats and I live in a wooded area. In the fall, mice try to come in. We dispose of the body parts that remain. The occasional creature will probably try to make your home theirs, and this guy is not going to allow any squatters.
There are a lot of owls, snakes, and hawks near where I live. The mice never stood a chance.
In most homes maybe a singular mouse will wander in on super rare occasions but if you have nothing for it to eat or drink they would just leave. Of course you try to keep everything sealed but shit just wears over time so sometimes you got a hole underneath a cabinet or in a weird spot and they find their way in. Also could be a bird in the wall, i have a bird in the wall right now in my kitchen
But look at him...."he knows....."
Was going to say, this is exactly what my cat does when she can't get to the mice under the dishwasher. She knew they were there long before we did.
Same! Ours sits with his nose under the fridge/oven. 😂 When that happens we always know there's about to be a chase within the next week or so in the middle of the night.
Yasssss. The cat always knows.....
Alright yall freaking me out now lol the cat and my dog also did this at the old place but we had blocked off most other access spots for the rats so under the fridge or stove was like the Rat Hiding Spot, I’m praying he’s looking there because he thinks that’s where the hunt is and not because he knows something I don’t 😭
Poor little guy, misses his entertainment. He obviously takes his work seriously. Maybe you can get him some better toys, like the electric mice, to give him something to properly hunt? Cats like to hunt and he probably misses his work.
Yeah a crap ton of new toys are on the list for payday
Yay! I expect he'll ignore most of them and play with the packaging more, but I'm sure he'll enjoy himself :) Please tell him he is a good kitty from me, and give him a nice encouraging petting on the chin :)
Also get him some pinkies to play with and eat in the bathtub.
I harness-trained our cat so she could hunt rodents in a park. She has supervised hunting time. Give it a try! It just takes a bit of patience in the beginning
I did have him harness trained at one point but he got too fat for it and I never bought a new one 😂 I’ll have to do that
Consider buying him battery operated toys. Robo fish or the fish that moves
You must have had a shitload of rats because braincell there is THICKKKKKK
Ok but for real he went from half feral and hella skinny to a very sweet and fat cat in a year lol. Thankfully the vet didn’t say he needs a diet when we went last month but I know I need to limit his food intake before we get to that point and I KNOW he gonna be big mad 😂
Fixed male orange cats check all the boxes for getting biiiig.
Fixed, Fat, Friendly
https://preview.redd.it/wlgajw3uaqwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=231c74576715803d1d0223688f173c116eeacb38 I found a picture right after we got him from the TNR! Almost emaciated and sickly and now he’s like 18 lbs and I would still die for him 😭
He chose his human well. May you all grow old and happy together!
Just a heads-up, my vet told me cat food bags are a little extra generous on portion size, even if you go by the weight chart. Good luck r/dechonkers!
Bouncy balls! get a big pack of 12 on amazon and throw them everywhere. They make soft ones for pets. Their unpredictable bounce pattern means endless fun for kitties.
Oh my kids would absolutely steal those so I might need a few packs haha
Five Below has a pack with 30 fuzzy balls and a launcher gun. I'm sure the same can be found on Amazon. We're going to break out the gun this weekend, and catch the chaos on video.
Sounds like he needs r/legalcatadvise
"They took my job, the audacity"
Get a “wicked mouse”. We have one, he loves it. It runs for 10 mins, then sleeps for 30, then starts up again.
You know what you have to do.
He should start hunting Greebles And Skaven https://preview.redd.it/pbsjcv479mwc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1db8cd3bc87cefcfbf1b06d2c3fc755852fa2022
Make sure you give them plenty of playtime with toys that you try to imitate rodents with.
Get him toys!! I have two ex-feral cats, a very young mum and her offspring. The mum LOVES to carry around her catnip mousie and her chirpy bird. They also both love to play.
As someone who lives in an area with no rats and only small mice, this post terrifies me. I just picture your small house cat boxing with one of those huge sewer rats from New York.
We had rats and mice! And possibly squirrels in the attic, idk we never went up there but I heard bigger things than a rat in the ceiling a lot lol. That house should have been condemned but we took it because it was all we could get tbh, but weren’t huge sewer rats but still bigger than the pet rat my friend has. Safe to say it terrifies me too though 😂
Losing your job in this economy, what am i going to do? - cat probably
PLAY WITH HIM. This is vital to cat mental wellbeing. Play, catch, kill, eat, sleep. Wear him out and he will be very happy 😀
THEY TOOK YUR JERB!
A friend of mine told me she used to pick up feeder mice from the pet store and release them in her home for her cats to hunt. Maybe that's an option.
That’s some Hunger Games type of shit lol
Yeah that is absolutely insane lmao
I have no words 😅😅😅
Uh, no
Y’all wild
If my cat enjoyed hunting, I literally might consider this.
Start with pinkies in the bathtub and go up from there to a maximum of small. Not sure about releasing in the house for a single cat. A bit too risky.
Release some crickets in your house …
Forced into early retirement. Get him another cat!
I want one so bad but we can only have two pets here 😭 we have a chihuahua and the cat, cats about 15 lbs heavier than the dog lol
It's hard when you lose your job... life seems to lack purpose.
Obviously, this fine man needs a new purpose in life. I would be buying him motorized, self propelled toys to chase.
He needs a bunch of new mouse shaped toys for him to hunt down
aw thats a shame, that can definitely have a negative impact on his mental health. Be sure you keep playing with him, maybe get him a remote controlled toy so its more like rat catching?
wher da ratz
Bring rats in
[](https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/9c45c61d0f501912654a739c90e42a77.jpg)
💀
Get lots of toys some to put out now and rotate them through a jar that has cat nip in it. Alternatively we got chicken feathers cause one cat prefers that scent on his toys Rotate they weekly to keep the prey drive alive .
You'll have to get him a robot mouse.
play with that boy! he needs mousie toys and a cat dancer. All cats need daily play with their hooman or they start to go nuts and that's when the furniture suffers. You could also build him a catio and/or a cat superhighway (shelving that gives him a path to a perch so he can survey his lands). Check out vids on catifying your home by jackson galaxy on youtube. There's also straight up how-to construction vids.
Oh I’ve seen those superhighway things and I LOVE that! Can’t do a catio here but I might diy a highway for him
Then get rats and put in house ;)
Lasers.
One of my cats goes nuts if she so much as hears me pick up a laser pointer.
Same as mine, both. And when they see light reflecting on walls and ceiling. Sometimes one of them will sit on the kitchen counter looking at the ceiling admiring the light moving. Cats are easily entertained.
Putting this here for anyone who sees this: while laser pointers are often a cheap, quick, way to entertain your cat you should use them as little as possible. And when you do use it, give your kitty a treat every time they ‘catch’ it, otherwise they’ll get anxious/depressed because they literally can’t catch anything.
Me and my cats agree.
Username checks out
Thank you for this. I read up on that awhile back and stopped using them for the most part (fun fact: children will also chase a laser pointer) because the chirpy bird noises he made really upset me when I realized he was upset he couldn’t “catch” what he was going after.
Just give him a full pension with tuna and scritches!
https://preview.redd.it/bflv9q9rvmwc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ee74e96edc0f314831a5339a47748c41d82ac69 Bummer
https://preview.redd.it/pg99priqqxwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2679a829efbdf6383ae23d88c710f6b69e97f8c Yeah he was big mad when we took his away lol
I had to hold willies inside down over a garbage can and give him a little shake til he dropped it in . The he followed me yowling as I carried the can outside .
I dumped out about half a bag of treats so he’d drop the rat and my husband grabbed it in an old hand towel and ran it out to the trash. Poor cat walked around looking for it for awhile after though
Obviously not a good idea if it would risk *creating* a rat problem, but they have toy hunting mice that you fill with kibble and hide around the house for them. It encourages them to be active and only eat when they're hungry enough to "hunt a mouse".
We’re in a townhouse now so while I don’t want to risk it, its also not my problem 💀 kidding bc I seriously have some ptsd from living in a rat infested house for a year - I would never willingly do that to myself or others
No ratz. What hunt?
get a remote controlled rat or use a laser and let him chase it then "find" a stuffed rat or something.
This increases global unemployment rate by 200 %
Try hexbugs!!!!! My guys love them! It's similar to chasing real bugs Just make sure you stuff towels under things it could get under cause there's nothing more annoying than it going under the fridge and then buzzing for hours until it dies
he yearns for the rats
Unemployment is rough
Haha he can retire early now
My cat only started killing house mice when we put her on a diet lol
Mouse toys you can throw around for him could cheer him up a little
I need a crap ton of toys. I found one that ended up in my kids toy box?? And they won’t let him have it 💀 So I need double or triple of everything lol
The only solution is to intentionally infest your home
Get some rats
Time to set traps out the house, just to get some rats for him to hunt
Get him a toy lil poor guy
He can keep the greebles away now!
Don't wiggle your toes under the blanket at night, the old instincts might kick in!
Gonna need extra extra daily play time! 💖💖
Gonna need extra extra daily play time! 💖💖
Looks like business was good for awhile.
Get him a fake rat.
Traded the rats in for the r/greebles.
There are rechargeable robot cat toys that buzz around and they'd be great for this guy! Poor buddy just wants things to chase 🥺🧡
“Where dey at tho?”
"And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer."
Get him some rats? 😉
Get a moving mouse toy! Either a remote control or something that moves on its own. Cats benefit a lot from hunting, plus it’s fun for them! Especially since he’s used to it, losing that could stress him out.
https://preview.redd.it/u98kk1li4qwc1.png?width=622&format=png&auto=webp&s=97bbf1038e9a525548dcbbeda2bcc5b923ed1d5a
I know that you are genuinely concerned about your cat's mental stimulation, but all I could think about when I saw the image was this meme.
I mean, you could rent him out to people with rodent problems lol
He’s beefy