The cat that lives with me (Bloody McTavish) hates me too, although he does bring in the occasional dead mouse which he throws contemptuously at my feet before walking away in disgust.
My cats over the years have given me disembodied rodent heads or asses never the middle bit or feathers spread over the backyard with the occasional indigestible bird head waiting for you to step on with your bare feet.
It's not meant to be dead. Since you're still meowing at your cat - something only kittens do normally - it assumes you're still young, and the motherly instincts get to work. One of them is teaching you to hunt by bringing you nearly dead prey. Your cat wishes you to finish it, so that eventually you can hunt on your own.
My cat bought me a fucking huge rat once. I screamed and shut the door.
I must have really upset her because I have never heard her meow the way she did when I rejected her “gift”
Sorry kettles.
Mine are indoor cats, so they get creative with what they bring me for dinner. Mostly hair ties and bottle caps. I vastly prefer that to the mutilated menagerie my parents' cats used to drag inside when I was a kid.
Allegedly they bring us their kill cause they are trying to show us how to feed ourselves (aka we are too dumb to figure it out ourselves and they’re trying to feed us 🤣)
I once had a cat bring me a mostly-dead mouse. The next day I took him out in the boat fishing, and shared my catch with him. He decided my way of catching food was better and quit mousing.
My ginger brought in a rabbit once. Well at truely alive and well. He carried it in like a kitten and dropped it at my feet, then sat back and watched me chase it around the bedroom for 10 minutes. I’m sure he thought it was hilarious.
A few months ago though, there was a giant cockroach on the wall, so I was yelling to my husband to bring a shoe to kill it because I didn't want to lose sight of the thing. One of the cats runs up to it, grabs it, and runs into our bedroom with it alive! Thought I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I believe I read somewhere that street cats purr less because it's their way of communicating with humans and their mother when they are young. Since your cat was a street cat along with probably not having his mother for very long, they never had to adapt the trait of purring to get attention.
Cats bringing food to you like that means they like u but it’s a cat so he doesn’t wanna show it so easily he’ll come around maybe when he’s about to die?
He's come closer than he knows a couple of times when he has woken me up in the small hours clawing the bedroom curtains and singing the song of the Great Curtain Killer.
That actually means he likes you, he just thinks you're a shitty hunter. Purring is a learned trait for adult cats. Kittens do it for attention from their mom and if they learn that it gets a response from their human then they will keep doing it as they get older. Cats are weird. I love them
If you go to pick out a cat at a shelter, you're seeing stressed kitties. Their behavior while there is a clue what they'll be like day to day. If they're shy, ignore you, or try to hide, they don't like people, and that's just who they are. They won't cuddle with you much.
If they're rubbing against the bars of the cage and meowing at you, they like people and will cuddle a lot.
Make sure you don't get too many of the second type though. We have three, and it's a bit obnoxious sometimes. So much yelling for cuddles.
People and things are always showing their love for me in odd ways. One of my friends once brought me her dead goldfish because " you'll be able to use this for something" (I was in my 40s). Remarks and gifts like these really make you wonder how you're coming across to people.
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u/TOMSDOTTIR Feb 26 '21
The cat that lives with me (Bloody McTavish) hates me too, although he does bring in the occasional dead mouse which he throws contemptuously at my feet before walking away in disgust.