Barking Birds

We feed our cat and dog outside. Although they come in the house as they wish, they spend most of a day outdoors. That’s their half of the bargain: we feed them, they patrol the environs. A neighbor taught us years ago that if we feed our cat half of what we were then providing, he’d satisfy the remainder of his appetite (and even better, his nutritional needs) by hunting mice and voles. The dog spreads her scent around the area, hopefully deterring deer.

The dog gets fed pretty much what she finishes in a few hours, except in deer season, when the woods are full of remains that hunters leave behind. We quit feeding her entirely for a few weeks then, as she scorns our offering for those tasty venison parts she gleans from the woods. It’s a little messy having legs and other offal stuff lying around, but it’s better for her than store-bought, slaughterhouse food.

So the cat gets a little dribble of kibble in a dish, twice a day—hunting the rest for himself. Several months ago, however, we began to notice that his food was disappearing faster than usual. Even when he had been napping on a chair for several hours, it seemed as if his dish was emptying. A mystery. Another cat lurking in the woods? A squirrel sneaking in? The dog thieving cat food?

Then I caught a titmouse red-clawed, as I watched it swoop down, grab a kibble and fly off. Half an hour later, after watching other feathered thieves make off with cat food, the dish was empty. No wonder the cat had been pestering us for more food! That’s a fine development: feed those ungrateful birds with ever-present sunflower seeds and some of them will want to broaden their diets. Give them an inch of bird seed and they’ll take a mile of cat food.

Over the next couple of weeks I tried moving the cat’s dish to other, less visible locations, but those clever titmice quickly caught on. (Never did a sweet little chickadee steal food—just devilish titmice.) I eventually had to cut a small cat-access hole in the door of an outbuilding and put the dish inside. That finally foiled the birds—although I suspect a mouse inside that building is very pleased with its new windfall.

The birds went back to their feeder; all was honest and well in animal land. Then one day I looked out, and caught another titmouse, as it swooped down to the dog’s dish, picked up a soggy gob of dog kibble the size of its noggin, and triumphantly struggled into the air again—it’s head drooping slightly from the weight.

Well this time I’m gonna let the dog engage in her own food fight. She’s not going to starve. Maybe it’ll teach her to eat all her meal when I put it down, rather than walk away and return later. What’s the worst that could happen if I take a laissez-faire food attitude—will the titmice start barking?