It's still the year of the rabbit
More rabbit remains.
Within fifteen minutes of the time I reopened the upstairs door to the basement (which would give the cats access to the outside via the cat door down there), they had a second rabbit haunch in much the same shape as yesterday's brought in/up to the dining room.
[I know it is not the same haunch as yesterday because yesterday's was thrown down a grate-covered storm drain across the road from the nearest intersection and over 50 yds. from the house.]
I dealt with it as I had the first, and it will be thrown away in the same fashion later. But I put on some heavier-soled slippers and went down into the basement to see if there might be (as I worried yesterday but never checked on) a dead bunny actually left inside the house by some animal who had figured out the cat door.
What I found was a foreleg (also partially gnawed on) stuck in the cat door itself, as if some cat or other creature had tried to bring it in but given up. So I don't know whether the two previous pieces had actually been brought inside by one of my cats or by some other animal. I had not acutally looked carefully or up close at that area of the basement since a few weeks before Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, we put away Christmas decorations and were in the basement, but did not pay much heed to anything except the area where we were putting the boxes away.
So I pushed the bone (which was propping open the magentized flap of the cat door in order to let in much cold air and let our heat out) to the outside and tried to look through the window beside the door to see if there were any more remains out there at the bottom of the stairwell. All I could see was a bunch of dried, dead brown leaves which the wind had swirled into the stairwell.
I was unable to get the cats to come back upstairs or even away from the cat door area for more than a moment or two. So I put the sliding solid piece that "shuts" the cat door back into place. I used a flashlight to check around the edges of walls and piles of boxes in the poorly lit basement, but I did not find any rabbit remains still indoors.
Mist is still in the basement, complaining with loud meows because her access to the outside has been cut off.
Within fifteen minutes of the time I reopened the upstairs door to the basement (which would give the cats access to the outside via the cat door down there), they had a second rabbit haunch in much the same shape as yesterday's brought in/up to the dining room.
[I know it is not the same haunch as yesterday because yesterday's was thrown down a grate-covered storm drain across the road from the nearest intersection and over 50 yds. from the house.]
I dealt with it as I had the first, and it will be thrown away in the same fashion later. But I put on some heavier-soled slippers and went down into the basement to see if there might be (as I worried yesterday but never checked on) a dead bunny actually left inside the house by some animal who had figured out the cat door.
What I found was a foreleg (also partially gnawed on) stuck in the cat door itself, as if some cat or other creature had tried to bring it in but given up. So I don't know whether the two previous pieces had actually been brought inside by one of my cats or by some other animal. I had not acutally looked carefully or up close at that area of the basement since a few weeks before Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, we put away Christmas decorations and were in the basement, but did not pay much heed to anything except the area where we were putting the boxes away.
So I pushed the bone (which was propping open the magentized flap of the cat door in order to let in much cold air and let our heat out) to the outside and tried to look through the window beside the door to see if there were any more remains out there at the bottom of the stairwell. All I could see was a bunch of dried, dead brown leaves which the wind had swirled into the stairwell.
I was unable to get the cats to come back upstairs or even away from the cat door area for more than a moment or two. So I put the sliding solid piece that "shuts" the cat door back into place. I used a flashlight to check around the edges of walls and piles of boxes in the poorly lit basement, but I did not find any rabbit remains still indoors.
Mist is still in the basement, complaining with loud meows because her access to the outside has been cut off.