Killer

I always thought certain animal names were ridiculous, like "killer" "kugo" "butch." Why make your pet sound mean. We have two dobermans -- we gave them benign names, "Rusty" and "Ruby." They don't need names that make them sound meaner than people already assume they are by the pure nature of their size and their breed. Then we have the two cats. Mookie is black and white with markings like a cow and she is mute -- couldn't meow if her life depended on it. And then there is Baghera, solid black like the black panther from The Jungle Book. Baggy, as we call him, came to us as a very young kitten that we felt needed protection from the queen bee cat when he first arrived. He grew up playing with Rusty when Rusty was a puppy and followed up by teasing with Ruby when she first came. We have pictures of Baggy cleaning Rusty's ears for him when we first brought him home and his ears were healing from the cropping that they do to dobermans. Who knew he would grow up to think his life's mission was to rid the neighborhood of as many mice, moles, birds and squirrels as he could. In the last week alone he has brought me home one mouse, one bird and a squirrel. I've watched him follow along on the sidewalk as the squirrels run down the electrical wires -- he's obviously waiting until the wire runs out and they have to come to the ground. For a cat with no front claws he has racked up quite a number in his mission to rid our neighborhood of the rodent population. I'm not quite sure what drives this cat. He has a comfortable home. He is fed regularly, has been provided a comfortable bed and a loving environment. He has been fixed, so he is not out there trying to impress the female cat population. Not to mention the fact that all the female cats in the immediate area have been fixed, too. I just don't know where we've gone wrong as cat parents. We've done all we could and our boy has grown into a serial rodent killer. I know, some may say he is just doing what comes natural and, besides, those squirrels are a nuisance, anyway. Of course, these are not the people who have to come up with ways of disposing of the victims. On the bright side, it has given me plenty of good reasons why Hannah cannot bring a hamster to live in our home -- it just wouldn't be fair. The hamster would have to live in constant fear, and it would just be teasing Baghera. I can see it now. We'd find an empty hamster cage and Baggy would look at us like "what, I thought it was like those lobsters you look at in the restaurant before ordering." Oh well, I guess we'll leave the hamsters safe in the pet shop, and we'll just keep helping Baghera get rid of his catch until the stupid rodents wise up and go live in some other, safer neighborhood.