@chaski Said
My cat caught a gopher the other day. He didn't kill the gopher right away as he wanted to play with it. At one point my cat dropped the gopher, which initially stood on its hind legs as if it was going to fight for its life....
....then the gopher noticed all of the acorns lying about (we have a lot of oak trees and a profusion of acorns this year...a
bumper crop one might say)....
...upon seeing all of the acorns, the gopher lost interest in my cat and the fight and began eating acorns....
...my cat was a bit confused by this behavior (no flight/no flight) and sat down to watch the gopher, lost interest and walked away...
Moral of the story: Eating is (apparently) an option.
lol Yep, a good move by the gopher. lol
One one my cats wasn't really into hunting birds and one day I noticed it lying asleep on the driveway.
Two magpies were nearby, and I watched as one of the magies went behind the cat to it's tail... and pulled it.
The cat woke up and made a half hearted attempted to grab at the magpie before lying down again.
This magpie went around to the head of the cat, but staying out of reach, while the other magpie went to do the pulling.
This went on for 15 minutes with the birds swapping positions and the cat reacting the same way each time. The birds ended up just flying away.
It appears that the birds had over time come to the conclusion that the cat was no treat to them andsaw the opportunity for play... or cat hair was good nest lining material. lol