You are lucky, in my previous flat there were hoarders-alcoholics that lived on the next floor, one day they brought mice with whatever shit they decided to take. At first they were contained on their floor, but after a while they were everywhere. Cat played with them at first >_< and then got bored. After 10 or so that traps killed (in a month) I moved out.
Your experience reminded me of "Tom," the farm cat who lived in the corn silo on my great aunt's farm. He avoided/hated children but tolerated the adults who worked there. Depending on the season, he killed multiple mice a day, ate only their livers (leaving behind a trail of bodies), and used crippled mice to track down the hidden others. Tom was a true professional—and honestly, quite terrifying.
Edit: My aunt "paid" him with leftover spaghetti, ground meat, and eggs, as well as a warm spot by the oven in the winter (if he chose to stay there). He was "semi-feral"—never going near the house during the summer months.
We had an indoor/outdoor cat growing up that liked to hunt squirrels. He was so good at it that the squirrels had a special cry for him. Anyways, he liked to leave nothing but their heads (with spine and tail still attached) on our front door step. I miss the little serial killer
Mice and some other pests have evolved an instinctual aversion to the smell of cats, it triggers their fear response. Just having the cats around might have been good enough.
I feel like depends on the cat. I found mine as a list kitten that we assumed got outside and then was starving and almost dead. He's always been N indoor cat. Had never seen a mouse in the 8 years he was alive. I go out of town for a day and night and come back to a decapitated mouse in the apt. Fool took care of shit without even knowing. Then years later, we move into a house and a mouse gets in some how. My cat finds the mouse, kills it, walks around with it, then drops it in the hallway for us to clean up. If he had been taught how to catch mice when he was a kitten, I he wouldn't have been starving to death. But when a mouse showed up, he knew exactly what to do.
They will have a joyous time with it. And you might find eviscerated mice under your couch one day. But my two dumbass fur balls just thought they were awesome toys.
Never figured out quite when they stopped coming in. The only really humane way to kill em is snap traps. I probably went through a couple dozen of them before they stopped showing up.
I was against using poisoned food traps because the last thing I wanted was my cat consuming a poisoned mouse. But, since our whole neighborhood had a problem with the mice, I wouldn't be too surprised if a neighbor did it.
We actually discovered something that worked far better than peanut butter - Reese's peanut butter cups. You break off a little piece, squish it into a ball, and place it on the bait lever. Not a single trap misfired once we switched to that.
Sounds like your apartment smells like leftovers; we had mice sometimes until we started to do dishes religiously and take out trash religiously. Or well, about as frequently as our parents do it.
Oh sure, when the cat walks into a house and wants to live there, they're all "omg it's so cute" and "let's go buy it food and a bed", but when I do it, they're all "who the hell are you?" and "leave or I'm calling the cops" :(
I would love the life of a house pet as long as I can play video games instead of sleeping all the time.
We just collectively need to convince our new overlords that it’s enrichment and just let me keep it I already have it, and I’ll be totally friendly and compliant whenever you want, I can pause, it’s cool.
If only the 4th one was in there. He's the brother of the huge orange boy but he's a dwarf. Looks exactly like an orange Maine Coone but he only weighs 7 pounds. He doesn't snuggle with the other 3. So he's 7 pounds and his brother is 23!
The fact that only two creature in this world that will approach another creature 10 times bigger than them just so they get adopted is pretty impressive. That's how i adopted my 4th cat, little baby dude just came out from under a car and yell at me until i pick him up.
Covert cat distribution network, working as intended.
In my opinion cats should never be kept as singles. They need social interaction with another cat, even if they don't like each other. It's not as bad as guinea pigs who will literally die from depression if kept alone, but it's similar.
I wouldn't say "never" because, for me, it's better to shelter them instead of leaving them outside. But yeah, ideally at least two cats. I've only had two cats, both stray, the first one tried to play with our feet when he was the only one in home as he plays with the second now.
in reality it sure as fuck seems like humanity domesticated humanity, we have a lot of domesticated features like neotony (we look strikingly like chimpanzee children) and we're arguably the most ludicrously social species on earth.
the ironic thing is that cats aren't really very domesticated, they're inherently a social animal and happen to just sorta fit with how humans work.
I mean that sounds more like those are just traits we have and we made domesticated animals have similar traits to out own since presumably that makes us get along better.
Meow at the moderately acceptably good (minus minus) looking and you may have some luck... but please don't get offended if we start pspspspsing you, it's just a reflex
When I was a kid Mr Kitty unilaterally moved in despite belonging to the neighbors across the street and the stern objections of my father armed with a squirt gun.
There's been a little baby girl coming around here, underweight, some kind of skin problem. She has always been an outside cat and belonged to my neighbor who died. My wife says we already have four so we can't bring a street cat in that's going to fight them.
She's right, but sometimes little girl comes up when I'm smoking and gets warm laying in my lap and I want to keep her so much.
please don't feed it unless you know for sure it's homeless (there are paper bands you can hang around their necks on which you can put your info so that the owner can call you if it's their cat). if the cat has a owner then you're making the cat too fat, probably buying the wrong food which will give it liver disease, and being fed 2 different foods can cause bowel problems. Please stop.
If the cat has an owner, that owner is letting them outside knowing the risks of eating what the cat isn't supposed to, as well as killing what it isn't supposed to.
Thankfully it's the year 2024 so if you literally spent 5 seconds doing a search you would find a real definition
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that hinges on creating self-doubt. “I think of gaslighting as trying to associate someone with the label ‘crazy,’” says Paige Sweet, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who studies gaslighting in relationships and in the workplace. “It’s making someone seem or feel unstable, irrational and not credible, making them feel like what they’re seeing or experiencing isn’t real, that they’re making it up, that no one else will believe them.”
Cats cannot do this.
I don't want to be the person that brings a real definition into a fun thread, but your complete lack of logical, sane thought on the subject drove me to it. This is your fault.
Did you even read your quote? A subjective stance from an assistant professor of sociology who studies gaslighting IN RELATIONSHIPS AND THE WORKPLACE. That's a severe lack of a "real definition" my guy. Go watch the 1944 film Gaslight from which the term was coined.
psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
Can you spot the difference? I cannot. And cats still can't do this.
Spot on. Cats are the OG scientists who stuck around to see what they could make us do after they discovered monkeys gave good tummy rubs.
Yadda-yadda, we industrialize food production and build awesome cozy dens to live in, yadda-yadda, they're watching us burn the world like, "fascinating... now, can I make the monkey give me treats 2 minutes earlier than this time last week..."
Only reason they don't have us outright worshipping them is we tried it once or twice, but things got weird.
Nah, I assume it's more like some unconscious dude shows up at your house with a weirdly sharp penis, he impregnates the house, and then the house explodes and a bunch of little dudes spill out.
The whole world is lit by gaslight.
Gaslight people into buying gas cars, gaslight people into overpaying for a house by hundreds of thousands of dollars, gaslight you into a kamala vs trump fake fight.
First world women gas lighting that they are real people, not literal walking talking personality disorders that the created themselves.
At least the cats give affection.
They rarely need to in the city, also those that weren't taught by other cats most of the time won't kill the mouse just torture it or scare.
You are lucky, in my previous flat there were hoarders-alcoholics that lived on the next floor, one day they brought mice with whatever shit they decided to take. At first they were contained on their floor, but after a while they were everywhere. Cat played with them at first >_< and then got bored. After 10 or so that traps killed (in a month) I moved out.
Your experience reminded me of "Tom," the farm cat who lived in the corn silo on my great aunt's farm. He avoided/hated children but tolerated the adults who worked there. Depending on the season, he killed multiple mice a day, ate only their livers (leaving behind a trail of bodies), and used crippled mice to track down the hidden others. Tom was a true professional—and honestly, quite terrifying.
Edit: My aunt "paid" him with leftover spaghetti, ground meat, and eggs, as well as a warm spot by the oven in the winter (if he chose to stay there). He was "semi-feral"—never going near the house during the summer months.
Edit2 + Spelling,Typos,Grammar,
What the fuck kinda Hannibal Lecter cat...
One of my calicos likes eating the bottom half of lizards and leaving them alive. She's a sadist.
Ive always wondered about the poor villagers who lived in tigers territory. Every night a kitty comes out to play.
We had an indoor/outdoor cat growing up that liked to hunt squirrels. He was so good at it that the squirrels had a special cry for him. Anyways, he liked to leave nothing but their heads (with spine and tail still attached) on our front door step. I miss the little serial killer
Mice and some other pests have evolved an instinctual aversion to the smell of cats, it triggers their fear response. Just having the cats around might have been good enough.
I feel like depends on the cat. I found mine as a list kitten that we assumed got outside and then was starving and almost dead. He's always been N indoor cat. Had never seen a mouse in the 8 years he was alive. I go out of town for a day and night and come back to a decapitated mouse in the apt. Fool took care of shit without even knowing. Then years later, we move into a house and a mouse gets in some how. My cat finds the mouse, kills it, walks around with it, then drops it in the hallway for us to clean up. If he had been taught how to catch mice when he was a kitten, I he wouldn't have been starving to death. But when a mouse showed up, he knew exactly what to do.
They -can- do that yes. Whether or not they will choose to, however, is anyone’s guess.
They will have a joyous time with it. And you might find eviscerated mice under your couch one day. But my two dumbass fur balls just thought they were awesome toys.
Never figured out quite when they stopped coming in. The only really humane way to kill em is snap traps. I probably went through a couple dozen of them before they stopped showing up.
I was against using poisoned food traps because the last thing I wanted was my cat consuming a poisoned mouse. But, since our whole neighborhood had a problem with the mice, I wouldn't be too surprised if a neighbor did it.
Snap traps in a brown paper bag baited with peanut butter.
When you catch something, curl up the top of the bag and throw it all in the trash.
Ooooh that paper bag idea is nifty.
We actually discovered something that worked far better than peanut butter - Reese's peanut butter cups. You break off a little piece, squish it into a ball, and place it on the bait lever. Not a single trap misfired once we switched to that.
I’ll have to try it if there’s a next time
Mine can catch 2 mice at the same time. And also wasps, centipedes, lizards, pigeons, etc.
How do you have so many mice?
Sounds like your apartment smells like leftovers; we had mice sometimes until we started to do dishes religiously and take out trash religiously. Or well, about as frequently as our parents do it.
Oh sure, when the cat walks into a house and wants to live there, they're all "omg it's so cute" and "let's go buy it food and a bed", but when I do it, they're all "who the hell are you?" and "leave or I'm calling the cops" :(
Have you tried meowing at them?
don't do this. it only made things escalate in my experience
Marking your territory probably didn't help you either
Don't pick a house with a dog next time.
Have you tried UwU'ing at them?
thats even worse why would you suggest that you trying to get me shot on sight?
Just block the shots with your big banana ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
That would only work if you're very cute and kinda short.
Humans are just exceptionally weak to cute. If aliens ever show up and try to conquer us, we're going to be so screwed if they happen to be adorable.
Speak for yourself, I hope the furry aliens make me their pet.
Well, I guess you're getting screwed anyways
(Source: SMBC)
I would love the life of a house pet as long as I can play video games instead of sleeping all the time.
We just collectively need to convince our new overlords that it’s enrichment and just let me keep it I already have it, and I’ll be totally friendly and compliant whenever you want, I can pause, it’s cool.
Yeah, I mean I can multitask licking their tentacles while I game.
Would it change your mind if the aliens are responsible owners and neuter their pets?
for free??
Got my tubes tied when I was 27 (no kids no interest).
So nope, not in the slightest.
We're on lemmy, none of us are having kids anyway.
It's all fun and games until de-worming time.
How many people have worms? I thought that was rare... Am I missing something and Kennedy is actually not an odd-ball?
Not many people have them, but the aliens don't know which ones - and they already have the anal probe equipment handy.
Shit, here I thought we were all going to just take heart guard haha. Your way doesn't sound as fun.
almost all animals and a lot of people too have worms, most of them aren't really dangerous though, so no worries.
but it's less prevalent in humans than in other animals due to hygiene or sth
source: i read it somewhere
What's great is when they show up and become furry because they decide that furries have devised the best possible social system in the cosmos
Even if they were horrors beyond our comprehension, a whole lot of people would be still be very sexually aggressive towards them.
Honestly that may be what saves us. They try to manipulate us by being cute, we weird them out by being horny.
It would be so funny if they left bc of kink shaming.
"KINK SHAMING IS MY KINK"
ACK ACK ACK ACK splat
War of the Worlds got absolutely the wrong reason for the aliens to leave.
There's a Philip K Dick short story about this, "The war with the Fnools"
If aliens turn up and they're like "Give me snacks. And a fluffy bed." I think we'd be like "...aight."
Aww nibbler
"ca wi go see de wokets humie? wi wana see de big ones fly hiiiiigh"
Too Cute crisis is about aliens coming to destroy earth but learn there are cats.
I never liked cats at all and one did exactly that. Stupid fuck make me fall absolutely in love with it too.
Get another one from the shelter! They have much richer lives if they have another cat to interact with, even if they don't like each other.
Plus having two cats is getting yourself twice the cute and love for very little extra work.
Edit - doesn't this look great?
Be careful, it looks like they're trying to merge and create a Cat King in that first picture!
That can have disastrous consequences.
Love RTJ, never seen this, thanks.
If only the 4th one was in there. He's the brother of the huge orange boy but he's a dwarf. Looks exactly like an orange Maine Coone but he only weighs 7 pounds. He doesn't snuggle with the other 3. So he's 7 pounds and his brother is 23!
Are they paying you or something??
Big Feline advertising all over this thread
The cats? Yeah everyday.
The fact that only two creature in this world that will approach another creature 10 times bigger than them just so they get adopted is pretty impressive. That's how i adopted my 4th cat, little baby dude just came out from under a car and yell at me until i pick him up.
What's the other kind of creature? Dogs?
Yep.
no way
My (future) cat jumped up on my car when I parked! Almost named her Engine...
As of about three weeks ago a stray cat figured out how to use our doggie door.
Now we have a 2nd cat.
Covert cat distribution network, working as intended.
In my opinion cats should never be kept as singles. They need social interaction with another cat, even if they don't like each other. It's not as bad as guinea pigs who will literally die from depression if kept alone, but it's similar.
New cat is totally cool with OG cat. OG cat fucking hates the new cat.
I wouldn't say "never" because, for me, it's better to shelter them instead of leaving them outside. But yeah, ideally at least two cats. I've only had two cats, both stray, the first one tried to play with our feet when he was the only one in home as he plays with the second now.
That makes it sound like the cat domesticated humanity not "The cat self domesticated itself"
in reality it sure as fuck seems like humanity domesticated humanity, we have a lot of domesticated features like neotony (we look strikingly like chimpanzee children) and we're arguably the most ludicrously social species on earth.
the ironic thing is that cats aren't really very domesticated, they're inherently a social animal and happen to just sorta fit with how humans work.
Note though, that neoteny is a disputed theory and (if at all) only part of human evolution.
Sad that the Wikipedia article is a mess now.
Neotony isn't disputed to exist in humans, only the ultimate cause and extent is disputed.
I mean that sounds more like those are just traits we have and we made domesticated animals have similar traits to out own since presumably that makes us get along better.
They are funny, don't really need a lot of space and training, and look pretty. Ofc I will go and by whatever.
Lost opportunity to say "I live here meow"
I keep meowing at hot guys at the bar and none have taken me home yet 😭
Meow at the moderately acceptably good (minus minus) looking and you may have some luck... but please don't get offended if we start pspspspsing you, it's just a reflex
Did you try letting them scratch under your collar?
Works better on girls.
I'm gay
Then just don't be gay anymore?
Duh
Well then I'll be your wing person.
Now I'm hungry...
Can confirm, purring is a sure way I can get attention from my gf
Did cats domesticate humans, or did Toxoplasma gondii domesticate both of us?
Nope. Almost wish I had that because fuck that smell!
When I was a kid Mr Kitty unilaterally moved in despite belonging to the neighbors across the street and the stern objections of my father armed with a squirt gun.
There's been a little baby girl coming around here, underweight, some kind of skin problem. She has always been an outside cat and belonged to my neighbor who died. My wife says we already have four so we can't bring a street cat in that's going to fight them.
She's right, but sometimes little girl comes up when I'm smoking and gets warm laying in my lap and I want to keep her so much.
They don't even meow to each other, just to humans. They know what they are about.
No, they do sometimes. Some meow in greeting to each other, as seen on cat cams.
they do sometimes do really low meows to intimidate other cats
Even with toys they are invading our space
https://i.vgy.me/Xb93ue.gif
Once they figure out email and posting on social media we're really screwed.
As you see, it is on the way
I love all cats, and they are free to walk inside anytime they want. Just no fighting in the house.
The cat that walked into my house and said "I live here meow."
I went to disagree untill I remembered there's a ginger cat that lives on my property that I feed sometimes
please don't feed it unless you know for sure it's homeless (there are paper bands you can hang around their necks on which you can put your info so that the owner can call you if it's their cat). if the cat has a owner then you're making the cat too fat, probably buying the wrong food which will give it liver disease, and being fed 2 different foods can cause bowel problems. Please stop.
If the cat has an owner, that owner is letting them outside knowing the risks of eating what the cat isn't supposed to, as well as killing what it isn't supposed to.
Imma feed him when he comes in and screams at me everytime because I like him and he's cool.
you can, but please know you're probably removing 3 years from its life.
please just hang a paper band around his neck with 'are you the owner of this cat? call me' on it.
Nah I'm right.
so you'd rather just poison a cat?
You're making a lot of assumptions based off nothing.
Isn't it weird how some people care more about cats than people or, often, themselves?
that's how well they manipulate us
More of a dog guy but I get it, I get it. I love their dumb stupid little faces.
Differences (well, stupid little faces, if I think in some dog types..)
Dog - "oh, he gives me food, love, care and a house, he must be a god"
Cat - "oh, he gives me food, love, care and a house, I must be a god"
"Everybody wants to talk about X, nobody wants to talk about Y".
That's not gaslighting, that's whataboutism.
I think it's more along the lines of cats gaslighting humans to care for them....that's where I grew the comparison.
That isn't what gaslighting is, though. Gaslighting isn't simply emotional manipulation; it's a specific kind.
You mean like manipulating humans into believing the cat is actually doing them a favor by occupying their home?
I do agree with you though, that comparison limps
You mean like manipulating humans into believing they are helpless animals that need to be brought in, and taken care of?
The specific kind of psychological manipulation in this case used by cats over millennia, by definition of the word, is gaslighting lol
Thankfully it's the year 2024 so if you literally spent 5 seconds doing a search you would find a real definition
Cats cannot do this.
I don't want to be the person that brings a real definition into a fun thread, but your complete lack of logical, sane thought on the subject drove me to it. This is your fault.
Did you even read your quote? A subjective stance from an assistant professor of sociology who studies gaslighting IN RELATIONSHIPS AND THE WORKPLACE. That's a severe lack of a "real definition" my guy. Go watch the 1944 film Gaslight from which the term was coined.
Webster
Can you spot the difference? I cannot. And cats still can't do this.
Also, it was coined in a play before that.
Again, it's 2024, this is easy shit.
Manipulation of the perception of reality is where my argument comes from. Your rude ass tone and pretentiousness are unwelcome. Have a good one boss.
Yeah, because words used in modern context are always best defined by their most archaic usage 🙄🙄🙄
To that point, words used in modern context are also up for interpretation and free thought. :)
Is anyone else bothered by people saying their cat is lost? -No; it left a toxic relationship! "They stole my cat" -Nah, it moved out!
Or something got to it. Pretty sure that's what happened to our outside childhood cat. Miss ya up there, Rover.
Cats never domesticated themself, since ever they are specialists in domesticate humans, for commodity, not for need.
Spot on. Cats are the OG scientists who stuck around to see what they could make us do after they discovered monkeys gave good tummy rubs.
Yadda-yadda, we industrialize food production and build awesome cozy dens to live in, yadda-yadda, they're watching us burn the world like, "fascinating... now, can I make the monkey give me treats 2 minutes earlier than this time last week..."
Only reason they don't have us outright worshipping them is we tried it once or twice, but things got weird.
Cats after entering a human stranger's house: Look at me. I'm the meowner now.
Humans: Yes, oh cute one!
The ho-meow-ner, at that.
Yeah but we chop their balls off soon after. I don't think it works out evolutionarily.
Their many siblings in the wild shall provide the young
So cats are successful squatters?
Nah, I assume it's more like some unconscious dude shows up at your house with a weirdly sharp penis, he impregnates the house, and then the house explodes and a bunch of little dudes spill out.
I shudder to write this, but it's more like a self-replicating knife dildo. Or a sawzall.
Not self-replicating. It's like a knife dildo that remodels your body into a knife dildo factory.
so like 3d printers, you get one and before you know it all you're doing is using the 3d printer to build more 3d printers
i guess that viruses might be evolutionarily very old, dating back to the RNA-world-episode, seeing how primitive they are.
maybe they could have a use (exchanging DNA segments between individuals) but that is pure speculation on my part.
Gaslighting is so last year. We need new slang - fenceposting, backyarding, BarneyRubbling.
Cats are the perfect human parasite.
Lmao aint no cat just moonwalking into my house and claiming part of my budget automatically. To the pound with you!!!
Can't relate
People always think aliens would want to kill us, but they would rather make us their slaves.
Chinese people are right
Context?
Yeah in 4legged furballs its cute. In 2legged douchebags its not.
Unless the two legged douchebag is a crow. Which, it still isn't cute, but you would want to pretend it is
Your PFP is blank
The whole world is lit by gaslight. Gaslight people into buying gas cars, gaslight people into overpaying for a house by hundreds of thousands of dollars, gaslight you into a kamala vs trump fake fight. First world women gas lighting that they are real people, not literal walking talking personality disorders that the created themselves. At least the cats give affection.
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Have you considered trying out therapy? It takes some time to find a good person, and there's a lot of wooo people out there, but some are good.