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Dear Sparkle
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When cats have problems, who can better help them but another cat? I know there are other cat advice columns on the web, but frankly, they sound like some human was writing them! This is real cat-to-cat advice. Are you a cat in trouble? You don't want to get a lecture from some human. I'll tell you what's up. If you're a cat with a problem, write me at sparkle@sparklecat.com. I can't answer every email, but I'll try to pick a good one every month. Oh yeah, and no humans with cat problems - you guys should be grateful we tolerate you. |
Dear Sparkle,
My humans are really lame. I love to go out and hunt for snacks - you know, birds, mice, an
occasional squirrel (although squirrels are more of a meal). The usual. I already know I can't expect
my humans to eat my catch. (Your advice to a fellow cat a few months ago
made that perfectly clear.) But I didn't want to leave them totally out of the loop, so I figured I'd
bring home live prey every now and again so they could at least enjoy the catch-and-release game. The
only problem is they hate it! I bring back a little mouse and let it go running on the kitchen floor
and they freak out! They scream and then they yell at me to go get it - what's up with that? I
brought the thing home for them to play with! Seriously, are humans really that stupid?
Signed,
Confounded
I hate to tell you this, but yes, humans really are that stupid. Now, this is just my opinion, mind you, but I think it comes from eating too much fast food. I'm not talking about the nutritional value of fast food, or the lack thereof (although I hear my fitness freak human discussing that topic constantly) - it has to do with the form the fast food comes in. In other words, it's completely preformed and packaged and bears no resemblance to the cow or chicken it came from (or potato or wheat, for that matter). Humans have a hard time connecting meat to something that was once living and breathing. In fact the thought kind of grosses a lot of them out, which is really dumb. Most humans live in some sort of weird fantasyland, where they never see a whole animal before they eat it. Usually they just see the parts, and usually those parts are already prepared too because "who has time to cook anymore?" (I've heard humans say that more than once.) In fact, humans have gotten so far away from the food chain that they think that "playing with your food" means taking a fork and pushing the peas under the mashed potatoes. Give me a break!
What would humans do if suddenly all the restaurants and markets went away and they had to fend for themselves? Wouldn't that be an ugly sight! It kind of makes you want to bring live prey home to train them just in case, doesn't it? But unfortunately, when it comes to hunting most humans are pretty much untrainable. They don't understand the game of the hunt at all. You're lucky your humans aren't the type who chase after the mice so they can catch them and set them free - it's really a bummer after you've gone through all the effort of catching something only to have someone take it away from you. Your humans at least just want you to keep it to yourself. So to keep the peace, you might as well do just that - play with the creatures you catch on your own. Sure, you can take one inside every so often and do the catch-and-release game just to show your humans what they're missing. But I doubt they'll get it. If they don't like protracted hunting of small game, it's their loss.
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