Vole? My advice is always to adopt a cat. Yours is precious. Have him call my Max or Maggie. Maggie won't kill, just brings it in and lets it go. Max kills about 75% of the time.

Your baby is very sweet looking. I love cats.

Thanks, bakemom - We have three cats - Babyboy is my favorite cat because... well, he's so cute!

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One of the other cats (we have three) watches tv and is also useless in the garden:

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Carrie

I love cats too but currently don't have any. I couldn't take the dead birds and baby bunnies that they also like and I couldn't stand them digging up my flowers in the garden to do their business. If I could find ways to correct these problems I'd have the little nuisance critter killers back in a minute.

I keep my 4 cats in the house or garage. After having 2 run over by cars, I only keep house cats. I do have a 14 yo siamese that still can catch mice. The others just sit and watch.LOL Now that we live out in the country and our house is set way back from the road, there isn't so much danger from cars, now we have foxes and bobcats. The cans just look out the window and the critters(except for the mice) stay outside.

Carrie, Your kitties are adorable. Baby Boy's face is beautiful, and the other one is funny as can be in front of the parrot.

My house cat is leash trained. He gets a 20 foot retractable lead when we go out in the garden every summer day. His record is 14 moles in one weekend (while leashed). He even dove out of my arms once to successfully pounce on a mole as I carried him back to the house. I wish I could post a picture. No dead birds or bunnies. Since I'm supervising him at all times, his business always ends up in suitable places, or the shovel gives it a quick fling into the woods. He was 4 months when we he started walking me on a 6 foot leash. After he got used to cars passing, and me following behind, he graduated to a wide harness and long lead. The cat I had prior to him lived 16 long years as a leash trained house cat. We started him at 2 years after he changed from an outdoor kitty to indoors.

Three main rules of cats on a leash.
1) They walk you.
2) Don't tie them to anything taller than the cat or within reach of trees, fences, or ledges.
3) The thin rope type leashes/harnesses, are good for kittens or training. Move up to a wider harness ASAP for the cat's safety. A pouncing/running cat will be easily hurt by the thin string when they abruptly stop because they ran out of leash.

My kitty loves it so much that he paws me, meows for me to follow, then leads me to his leash and lays on it when he wants to go outside.

Give all your fur babies a kiss.

Mine prefer to snuggle up with each other on my lap on the lazyboy... Chewie, the Valleybulldog, can barely stay awake as you can see. He is good at chasing the squirrels away, but Little One stays inside the house and gets the mice in the basement.

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tiff - i love your pets - how cute they are together!

Here are three of mine "together" -

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I agree about keeping cats in the house, rather than outside. The picture of Baby Boy was taken a few months ago, since then, we had decided to keep the cats inside (they never liked going out anyway). Luckily, we have a screened in porch which suffices. Cats LOVE looking out the window - it's amazing. At first, Scampy was annoyed when we told her and stuck her tongue out at us (only kidding...) but she's adjusted:

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squirrel girl: How interesting - leashing the cats - WOW, you've really gotten it right - that's amazing!!

Carrie

My cats love to watch out windows. Molly thinks the bathroom window is her own private bird-viewing platform, and she wants it open in all weather. (You can probably guess that winter is her least favorite season, because that window stays CLOSED most of the time, lol.) B.C. likes windows, but doesn't want to be outside. If he DOES get out (and a door closes behind him), he cries until he gets back into the house. I think Sophia would be happy to be outside, but she doesn't try to get out. When the weather is nice I let them out on the tiny back deck and stairs, and I sit with them so they don't wander. I'm sure if any mouse was foolish enough to get into the house, it wouldn't last long. We don't have a problem with many critters, but I've thought that a dog might help with the woodchuck issue we've had in the past. Our neighbor's outdoor cat occasionally leaves us a mole as a gift.

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Sophia, the grand dame of the house.

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B.C. (Bad Cat) and Sophia, in their favorite bird-viewing spot - the feeders are outside that window. B.C. is almost 13, and Sophia is 11.

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My favorite picture of Molly, and our son Ian. Molly is the baby, not yet 2. Sophia thinks she's a pain in the behind; we jokingly call Molly "Nermal," to go with Sophia's "Garfield," and B.C. does a very good "Odie."

Laurel

Carrie,
your "Baby Boy" has earned the right to be useless by being so darned cute...beautiful even. Want to snuggle him right now! What a face! :-)

Linda

I listen to a radio show about pets and learned about something called a cat bib, which is supposed to prevent cats from catching birds by interfering with their pouncing. I got one for my mighty hunter. So far I have only put it on for trial periods so she can get used to it. When spring comes, I'll see how it works.

Here is a link that might be useful: cat bib

Here's one of our three cats that loves to stare at our aquarium and occasionally take a leap up the side to get a closer look.

Carrie I'm sorry your cat is hard of hearing having to watch tv using the closed caption option:).

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Sometimes a cat will turn to hunting if thay are fed ONLY dry food.

LOVE the picture.

Robin

Adorable pictures! What a cute thread. Carrie, Baby Boy is just beautiful, but clearly not going to win any prizes in a mouser contest...hehe!

I love cats and have 2 small females. Both were rescue kittens and are spayed and vaccinated. Jasmine has limited outdoor privileges and she loves it. She has a wild streak in her and eats a lot of what she catches. Iris is strictly indoors except when she sneaks out, but she is leash trained too. Squirrel Girl, thanks for the tips on leashes!

Both are very good mousers. Iris has cleared out any mice that were living in the basement. Jasmine catches lots of moles, voles, chipmunks, mice, and occasionally a squirrel or baby bird. I hate it when she catches a fledgling and usually keep her in for a couple weeks when she does. I also try to only let her outside in the afternoon when it's fledgling bird season, figuring that most baby birds will fledge in the morning (don't know if that's actually true though).

Here are my two babies - Jasmine, the cat who goes outside doing what she does best - eating a mouse she caught. She needs to be wormed regularly!

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And Iris, the one who is tiny and adorable and leash trained! Doesn't she have a pretty purple harness and leash...:)

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lol - sorry, you are wrong rich, she's not hard of hearing - she's nearsighted and forgot her glasses!! Tsk tsk

thanks everyone - and your pictures!! So cute, I especially love the aquarium shot - what a picture to win a contest!

thanks, linda - Baby Boy IS so cute, but also is sweet - he actually kisses his stuffed little teddy bear every night before going to bed. (I taught him "kiss the baby" and he does it now!!) He is so much more affectionate than the girls - I wonder if all male cats are more serene - it seems that way to me.

We used to have dogs - when they died, we thought - no more pets but the cats were born on our porch seven years ago and my son wanted to keep them all, so we spayed, neutered them and kept them. They have been a joy and while I love dogs, I've gotten very attached to our cats...

All your pictures are so adorable... don't you just love it when cats "kiss"....?

Carrie

Babyboy, there are few animals more handsome than a black face with white whiskers - that's our Max too - a very handsome animal.

LOL...thanks for the good laugh this morning. Love these pet threads and this one was particularly funny! :-)

OH my goodness! A string praising the wonderfulness of cats! How can I NOT say something? :)
Not sure how to post a photo, otherwise I would bore you all with many pictures of my "three orange boys." They make life worth living. We live in a rowhouse in the DC area, and the backyard is kittyproofed so they can't get out. Recently, our most adventurous boy has discovered how to get out, so my husband is redoing it. They are the best thing in the world, even though they are by far the worst "pest" in my garden, digging, pooping, chewing, making all kinds of trouble!