Dogs eating dead animals

Being the owner of 4 cats I'm quite used to the delights of dead animal 'presentation' every morning.

Not being a morning person & Fingal, being a 'keen nosed' springer means he'll always be first on the scene.

Fingal, as you can imagine really enjoys coming downstairs in the morning as he's never sure what delights will be on offer.

Big things like a rabbit, crow, pigeon etc - he's happy to bring to me but the smaller stuff like a - mouse, vole, bat, rat, mole, small bird etc he hides in his mouth and nips back in doors before crunching them up and eating them.

The 'goods' are fresh so my question is......does anybody else have cat's that deliver pressies for their dog/s and if so - is it ok for them to eat them.

No cats, But Star has ate a dead rat whole once, we asked the vet whos said to bring him in to make him bring it up, as there is quite a few things rats can carry. I dont know about other animals but i would not take the risk with rats.

Rats are rare to be fair (i feel a song coming on...)

9/10 it's wee birds and mice,voles etc.

The rats my cats get are in the river/stream at the bottom of the garden. Clean natural animals (as rats go)

Had a cat once who used to jump through the open bedroom window with a rabbit "kitten" in it's mouth. Would scuttle off into the toilet and next morning all we could find were the hind feet and the ears.

She went down into the burrows to get them.

We weren't either fast enough, nor alert enough to stop her.

Another cat used to bring me the "sugar glider possums" - she never killed them, just brought them to me.

Not any more - my cats now are inside cats. Go out on a lead.

My cat (Halibut) is not for sharing - finders keepers, he always eats what he catches himself if I don't get there to take it off him first (mind you, he's getting on a bit & is not the hunter he once was).

I'm sure there must be a risk that the wild animals are carrying some sort of disease, but we never had any ill effects of Halibut eating them.

i dont think my cat would know what to do if she caught an animal lo
ATD xxx

Phil I would urge you take great care with carrion. I know of a number of people who have lost dogs after they got hold of rodents that had been poisoned with warfarin.

My friend lost her lovely Lab we think she picked up a bird that a gamekeeper had laced with poison bait meant for birds of prey or foxes , illegal I know but it happens in some areas of the country.

Zack -my Springer- is always very grateful for any kitty gifts. Its mostly mice though. Sometimes dead but often brought in alive and then released, I reckon the cats think its a great laugh to watch us trying to catch them, I always return those ones to the wild
Zack has been eating them for years and no harm done as far as I know. The crafty little monkey can fit them in his mouth and all you see is a tail hanging out....we call them Mousepops

My cat has recently started to bring me delightful mice....he never used to, but over the past two weeks, we've had three mice, with one alive, who didn't last long...the dogs have got hold of them before I've managed to, but they don't seem to have any negative side effects from it....