You'll be able to find a use for it! Read how to turn your dead mouse into a useful piece of computer hardware :D
http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/04/28/...-a-dead-mouse/
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You'll be able to find a use for it! Read how to turn your dead mouse into a useful piece of computer hardware :D
http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/04/28/...-a-dead-mouse/
Hi Moira,
I actually have one of those USB hardware mice :D
Unfortunately, only my female cat catches mice from time to time, brings them in unharmed and releases them................then watches with great interest (and probably amusement) as I have to catch it and put it back out again :eek:
This is probably a stupid question but is that a real mouse?
yes
I saw on discovery some guy who cut up cockroaches and other bugs, filled them with watch gears, wound them up and sealed them up. evidently you can buy these frankenstein bugs from his site. I had no desire to look into it.
Call me new fashioned... but I think I would have more fun with an annoy-a-tron.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8c52/
awesome. That is very similar to an idea someone once told me.
They hid a cheap portable CD player and travel speakers in the tank of the toilet. Taped above the water line of course. Then they set it playing on a really low volume so that it could only just be heard. The musical toilet. People thought they were going mad for weeks.
But on the original topic....
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/...5/badger.shtml
How to install linux on a dead badger.
Hmmm,
I like the annoy-a-tron....................reminds me of the time I lent my radio controlled farting machine to the guys in General Infrastructure Support ::biggrinb
Yes, the annoy-a-tron sounds amusing :D and installing linux on a dead badger gives a new meaning to the word weird ..... what sort of person installs linux on a dead badger - or makes a computer mouse out of a real-live-dead mouse for goodness sake??
Yeah my cat has a habit of bringing mice in alive, then dumping them and joining in the catch, so there's me and the cat both trying to catch this poor unfortunate (and sometimes injured) mouse. Fortunately she doesn't catch many, but I really don't like cats when they do this.
Hi Moira,
Zoe is rather more malicious, although she has never injured one to my knowledge (judging by the rate at which they scurry off when released). She just lets them go and watches the proceedings with apparent interest.
Her brother doesn't pay any attention, and has never caught a mouse. It would seem as if, because he didn't catch it, he doesn't want to know :D
I have wondered if it might be part of Zoe's maternal instincts, and she is trying to teach her "kittens" to hunt?
I am quite good at it actually..............I have an old towel handy and as soon as I hear the tell-tale noises I grab it and drop it over her. She backs out from under the towel and I can carefully gather the mouse and put it out. :)
I use a wellington boot :) I can often corner the mouse into going inside, then I just pick up the boot and deposit the mouse outside (while making sure I keep the cat well inside for long enough to allow the mouse to escape).
One of my cats will go after anything it can get its paws on. We've been brought home countless dead mice, birds and even squirrels. Welive right near a small farm and there are plenty of open fields for her hunting grounds. I know we've been brought at LEAST 5 squirrels! We had to put bells on her collar to give the birds and squirrles fair warning. Even with the bells she was able to get another squirrel. Maybe our cat just got the one deaf and dumb squirrel in the area! We don't see as many birds now, but more mice than ever.
My other cat couldn't catch a cold. She is a Russian Blue and it took her almost 2 years just to get her to warm up to our family! She was so scared of everything. When we would first try to let her out, she would just hide under the shed in a corner.
LOL. We had a collar on Lucy, but took it off in the end as it had to be irritating her (catching the bowl when she ate and rattling all the time) and wasn't making any noticeable difference in the number of animals she caught.
Apparently cats are smart enough to figure out that if they hold the bell with their paw it makes a lot less noise. Mine had a more direct solution to collars - scratch the catch until they came off.
Cat bells don't work. There are a number of problems with them:
1. The cat will learn to move more stealthily so as not to activate the bell, this will actually make it more efficient.
2. Most wildlife will not associate the noise with danger, particularly in an urban environment with all the noise of human activity.
3. Birds tend to be warned by movement rather than sound, unless it is a gunshot. If the cat moves more slowly, they will have less of a chance.
4. Cats are basically ambush hunters, so the bell is too little too late.
More here: http://www.users.bigpond.com/berrime/collbell.htm
:)
nihil: Thanks for that info. I never thought about it, but it makes sense. I've actually caught her stalking prey. She basically would move very slowly as close to the ground as she could and try to hide herself. She likes to be in tall grass and she spends a lot of time in the fields behind the house. Though, lately she hasn't been back there as much. I've spotted a couple of foxes back there and I suspect she is avoiding them?
I never much cared for the idea of putting bells on her. I thought it was natural. Even I would even join in on the fun with a bb gun. ;) It's the females in the family who felt bad for the squirrels and birds. Though, they don't have an issue with the cat going after the mice. lol
yeah, I always found it ironic when people yell at their cats for killing a bird then tuck into a 8oz steak.
It's the fact that cats don't just kill the bird, they play with it in a cruel manner first. At least your 8 oz steak had a humane death.
I wouldn't count on it. In my younger days, I worked kill crew in aQuote:
Originally Posted by Moira
slaughterhouse...lasted all of 30 minutes with those boys. They were
the cruelest, coarsest people I ever met...
I wouldn't even bet that my steak had a humane life, never mind death. In fact if its cows, its a slaughter house. If its humans we would call it a concentration camp.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira
Well, maybe. It doesn't mean I have to accept my cat playing with an injured bird or mouse though. What gets me more is people who are anti hunting, but who own cats that bring in prey which they kill in a cruel manner after playing with first.
Hi Moira,
I think that you have to bear in mind that this is "natural" behaviour for a cat, well some of them at least.
Chasing a fox across the countryside is not what I would describe as "natural" behaviour for a member of the human race (even a late entrant :p)
As Oscar Wilde observed: "the indescribable in pursuit of the inedible."
This part of the World is "anti hunting" after a fashion. It is 95% arable farming, and foxes don't eat crops, but rabbits do............... There isn't the political nonsense, just that foxes are acceptable in this environment.
It saddens me to have to report that "death by hatchback" is by far the more common cause of a fox's demise than "death by horseback". I really despair at the incompetence of some road users. Badgers, phesants, partridges, mallard etc. are all casualties :(
Driving to Hull (about 35 miles) I will see maybe 1 to 3 foxes killed in a week. Most hunts wouldn't have that kill rate in a year?
I wonder if a bell would have helped this guy.
http://www.buzzhumor.com/videos/1313...ttack_On_A_Man
Well I gave up trying to view that as it was buffering for ages. However, I accept that hunting and playing with prey is natural behaviour for a cat, that doesn't mean I have to like it though! I have read that in the wild, cats don't play with their prey, it's just a domesticated trait since they have no need to hunt for food because we feed them. So when they catch something, they don't want to actually eat it, they've just developed the trait of playing with whatever they catch for amusement.
Yes, hunting is artificial (I'm not particularly anti hunting by the way) and I'm sure it isn't responsible for the majority of deaths of foxes. In fact, I'm pretty sure very few are caught (or were now it's illegal) this way.
Sure............ a Bell military chopper? :D
In other news Tony the Tiger, long term mascot for Kellogs Frosties, had to be put down after a brutal attack.
Can't really comment on this:
http://www.buzzhumor.com/videos/5752...mbers_To_Flush
Please notice that although the cat is using a human toilet (WC) it still tries to dig a hole to begin with :D
Tony the Tiger had to be put down? :(
That video is a hoot - I'm surprised the cat didn't surface with a wet face!
I've seen a video where they tied a sting with a plastic ring on the end to the handle so the cat could flush too. It's a amazing that you can teach a cat to stuff that some people can't seem to master. :)
I'm not sure whether you're really "teaching" the cat anything though, even if you do manage to get it to pull the string on the odd occasion. It's probably just playing with the string! Cats really don't have sophisticated enough brains for that sort of thing.
Don't be so sure.
You can't steal my cat's seat because if you do it meows to be let out/fed/shot in the head until you get up then it steals it back.
Well yes, but that's something the cat actually wants to do. Teaching it to flush a toilet is trying to teach it to do something that has no real reward for the cat, and unlike dogs, I don't think you can apply that sort of teaching to a cat. They do what they want to do, not what you want them to do!
That's not entirely true here's an example of a cat doing something that I'm sure he doesn't want to do.
Cat named Elvis and my son.
Cats can be taught just as many tricks as dogs and in just the same way. You make a reward by associating a trick with food, just like Pavlov.
I've seen how you teach a cat to use the toilet. You start by putting a plastic tray with litter under the seat so the cat would use it as a normal cat box. After awhile you can remove the tray and presto you have one more person hogging the bathroom. I am against teaching a cat too flush for one reason. That being, the next time your cat is upset about something you did or didn't do he just has to wait until your in the shower to take there revenge. :)
Doesn't look like the cat had much choice there! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by MadBeaver
I really wouldn't credit cats with such brain power. As for putting a litter tray under the toilet seat, the cat would probably choose somewhere else to use as a toilet long before the experiment worked - I know Lucy wouldn't put up with the difficulty and discomfort of climbing up onto the toilet and balancing there.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadBeaver
My girlfriend was watching me for some reason and now thinks that I am into some dodgy extra-murual activities.
Nice one Moira.
Hahahahah! :D
My cat when faced with the choice of either jumping up on to my bed or jumping onto my chair, my desk the windowsill, my drawers, the shelves, the wardrobe and then onto the bed will always choose the long route. In fact, sometimes she jumps off a corner of the bed, walks all the way round the bed, jumps back on the opposite corner, walks across the bed and sits back down.:confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira
My cat when faced with a choice lays down.
My cat will always choose the route that gets her most in the way of what you're trying to do :)
All this talk of mice must have given her ideas I think. Early this morning when I was getting up for work at 5 am, my husband said Lucy had been chasing something round the bedroom for a while. I didn't have time to investigate and I don't know if he subsequently sorted the problem, but she was showing a lot of interest in the back of a cupboard :( I dread to think what's there (assuming my husband hasn't sorted the problem).