My cat decides to bring my guests... gifts.

[Ben551]

Allow me to tell you a story...

Firstly, the thing to understand about Bundle (the cat) is that he is an active rodent hunter.  He is doing his part to save and protect the local New Zealand ecosystem by knocking off rats and mice on a grand scale.

Rats and mice are not native to the country and were introduced accidentally by early settlers in the late 1800's, so the eco system is not designed to cope with them.  These little pests are one of the primary reasons that several species of bird, only found in New Zealand, are close to extinction (some are already extinct).  So we all get behind pest control in a big way, with traps... bait... the works.  It's part of the job of being an environmentally responsible resident. 

It was in the news last year (and I'm quoting the headline) that the rats and mice of New Zealand had a better than normal season in the bedroom.  Since then, we've noticed our Bundle bagging himself quite a number of pests, sometimes up to 15 per month.  Our house backs on to about 10 acres of forest, so it's not unusual.  I'd say the mix is mostly mice.

Now, Bundle is a good clean boy, so he likes to wash them in water first (places a dead one in a water bowl, bats them with his paw, then sniffs to decide if clean enough to present to his people).  Then he, much to our delight and pleasure, places them on our outside doormat as a neatly washed little wet parcel of ratty (or mousey) goodness.  Sometimes we get a "meow" to let us know it's there, and he expects a knob of butter or some fish as a reward.

Of course we thank him for these little treats, as he's doing a good job.  Plus, apparently it's psychologically damaging for a cat to be told off after working to feed his family (our vet says it's one of the reasons cats run away).

I'm sure you've worked out where this is going.... 

Yes.  Bundle has decided that guests are also part of the family and they need parcels of ratty goodness too!  Whilst I'm sure he's now working twice as hard to feed both us and the guest cottage, I'm fairly sure (if discovered... hasn't been yet) that guests will take a pretty dim view of Bundle's idea of a dietary supplement.... any day now we're going to have to explain this... to someone. And it's going to be awkward.

~ Ben

[Laura1651]

At least your cat bring gifs ha ha, my dog she is a thief if my guest live the door open she steal their socks.

and sometimes I found the socks in the same day or at the moment when she enter into their room and I bring it back to their room, but one day I was kind doing deep cleaning in my room and in place where is hard to see it was some socks that were not mine and hard to know who those socks belong.  😉Socks from a previous guest , she looks guilty

Mom what I can I say, I love socks

[Ben551]

@Laura1651 Hahaha she looks so guilty!! Naughty girl. My wife’s mother has a dog that looks just like her and she does the same thing, only she also goes robbing underwear too.  Her mum’s dog is a Bichon / Maltese Terrier cross - is that the same as yours?

[Laura1651]

She is Maltese, I rescued her when she was 2 years old, she is 9 years old now but she still look like puppy, she is adorable. 

But she only like socks, at one time she has to stay at my brother house, and my brother said that their socks  were getting lost from the dirty clothing basket and that they found all the family socks at my dogs bed, so for that I know she only likes socks because in that dirty basket they had everything.

[Ben551]

@Laura1651 That’s adorable 🙂

[Susan1028]

Hahaha!  @Laura_R  I've got a "terrior" who will do that if she's allowed to wander when I have guests!  Along with Mr Kitty, most guests get a good laugh furry  affection but I'm very careful to keep them away from guests if they prefer that too.  Several guests have actually left positive reviews for my pets as well lol..

[Lizzie]

@Ben551,

Aww Bundle sounds like he has some good manners, by placing them in his water bowl first! hehe - is this something you can train? 🙂 

My cat Johnny, mainly just sleeps now, he is getting quite old, but when he was younger he use to get quite excited by the sight of a little mouse...

[Ben551]

@Lizzie  It’s very considerate of him to wash them first, yes. We wondered why they were always wet until we observed him doing it one day. Now we supply a special outside water bowl for the washing, so he has fresh drinking water.

Johnny looks like such a cuddly, happy boy 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Laura1651   I have a friend whose dog used to steal her neighbor's firewood. She kept finding this nicely split firewood in her yard every day, which she really appreciated, as she heated with wood. Then her neighbor told her that the dog was stealing it.

[Laura1651]

@Sarah977 That is so funny ! I saw an article about dog stealing newspaper and magazines from neighbors, and I was like: what an unlucky neighbors, but what a lucky owner because for him is hard to know who those magazine or newspapers belong to unless it has the name, but for the owner he was saving money in newspapers and magazine subscriptions;)

[Clara116]

@Ben551 I love Bundle - AND we need your Bundle - we are having to set traps and bait as some of our neighbors do not have garbage cans and have created a problem in our neighborhood. What a brillant cat you have. Please can we borrow Bundle for a few weeks??? Well, Flordia is a little distance from you guys...

I think I'd tell all the guests and I'd say that if they are recepients of a gift you'll have to charge them extra....LOL.

Thanks for the lovely belly laughs you gave me and I'd paint the great story and tell it to all guests - Bundle the Super Hero  Cat

Keep us posted and how about a photo of Bundle for our pleasure??? thanks and best, Clara

[Ben551]

Hi @Clara116 - you're very welcome, though I can't take the credit for Bundle's good work 🙂

Feel free to check out his picture and bio here: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/My-cat-decides-to-bring-my-guests-gifts/m-p/920152/highl...

[Susan1028]

@Clara39

I lived in Florida and my daughters and I volunterred at a no-kill shelter in Jupiter.  We brought home the most wonderful cat and a dog---so many needing loving homes!  Do yourself a favor and go visit a shelter.  You'll fall in love and will know the right one when you meet him/her!  You'll have a best friend for life!

: )

[Ben551]

@Susan1028  completely agree Susan.  All our cats (we have three including Bundle) came from rescue shelters in Scotland, when we lived there.  It was sure expensive relocating them all to NZ, but... they're family, so totally worth it.  Bundle is the only one active enough to hunt, the other two are cuddly (fat) lay-abouts!

[Susan1028]

Ha!

I've always had rescues.  So much love and personality! One of my sweetest loved riding in the car.  He would sit in the back window like it was his throne and watch the world go by!  We moved collectively ...almost 4200 miles together!

[Christine615]

Wow! And Airbnb with benefits! This post made me laugh so hard - in a good way. Thank you!!! 🙂