This past week, my little part of the world was hit with a
great deal of snow. As a result, many roads were closed, preventing me from
going home. Thankfully, my girlfriend’s parents do not live too far from where I
work and were kind enough house me for two days while we waited for the storm
to pass. The morning of day two at their house brought somewhat of a winter
wonderland – the snow was deep and everything looked spectacular.
Somewhere around 8 AM, my girlfriend’s mother let out one of
their two cats (Scooter). She called me over to the door to watch the cat on
the back deck and the birds digging for seeds off in the distance. As cats do,
Scooter noticed the birds in the distance, crouched down, and went into attack
mode. Given the depth of the snow, my girlfriend’s mom and I were quite certain
that Scooter would not be able to reach the birds without blowing his cover, so
we just stood at the door and watched. As Scooter made his mad-dash for the
birds, the ones that we could see all flew away. As he ran behind the tree, we
saw feathers fly and thought that the worst had happened, but just then, we saw
a bird fly away from behind the tree. We breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately,
we began relaxing moments too soon. As more feathers flew, we came to the stark
realization that not all was as it seemed. At that moment Scooter came running
to the door from behind the tree with a sizable dove in his mouth. My girlfriend’s
mother and I could not believe what just happened – or the fact that we let it happen! When the cat got to the
door he dropped the bird on the mat as if to say “I brought you a gift”. The dove
hobbled/flew a few feet away from the door and landed in the snowbank. My
girlfriend’s mom did what she could to protect the bird from the cat, however,
the bird was beyond saving.
The moral of the story: never underestimate the innate animal
instinct of a cat, even when you think the odds are stacked against it.
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