Too Much Information – an online comic
An old house, a geek, a cute transvestite, a very tall lesbian, and at least one ghost–what could happen? – Adult situations and artistic nudity. Not suitable for children.
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It’s a common misconception that cats bring home dead mice as “gifts” for their “masters”, however, cats are not pack animals and don’t engage in that sort of behavior (also, ask any person with a cat which one the cat thinks is the “master”; not many will say it’s the human half of the relationship). What cats DO do is hunt small prey, instinctively and as a form of entertainment. However, pet cats are usually quite well fed, so even though they’ve caught a mouse out of habit, they aren’t really hungry enough to eat it (and the food their served is usually both easier and tastier to ear than a tiny ball of bones and fur). They’ll carry their catch around precisely as long as it takes for something else to catch their attention, and then they’ll drop it wherever they are, having lost interest in it. A frequent interest in their human caretakers often leads to them dropping the dead prey in front of said human, or on the human’s approach, leading to the mistaken belief that this was a planned delivery.
That does not explain the one cat who would sit at the door and meow until Mom came to take note of the dead creature he brought home and was patiently waiting to be praised for his efforts.
Sure it does. He dropped the mouse at the door because he needed his mouth to meow to be let in.
Cats are perfectly capable of making sufficient noise to attract the attention of a human while carrying a mouse, kitten or even a sock in their mouths. In fact it is something you see fairly commonly in queens after their litter has been weaned and distributed.
I also dispute your assertion that cats don’t hunt in packs. While it is not common in domesticated house cats both cheetahs and female lions use a coordinated hunting technique to catch their prey and I have seen such behavior echoed by my own clowder of cats. I’ve had as many as 8 adult cats all indoors who are mostly willing to be fairly close together, and watching them chase the infamous red dot up and down the hall both competing and cooperating to try and catch it. A couple of times I’ve recognized the carefully spaced out distribution along the hall to keep any one cat from getting worn out that you see with cheetah vs gazelle.
Or the cats who would wait at the patio door holding down a live critter (had one who’d being home bats and another garter snakes) and calling for attention.
A clowder of ferals will indeed bring prey home to share.
Yet-another explanation might be found in this webcomic:
[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2011-12-23]
…followed-up by this later page:
[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2012-01-09]
They know what they did, and want to make amends