Calico was tough.
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I've got some outside cats around the place, mostly for rats and what-not critters like snakes. Calico was a year old female and she tried to have a litter of kittens this week. She had them in a box on the back carport, but I woke up Tuesday to day old kitten parts scattered everywhere. Reckon a coon got 'em or maybe the tomcat killed them.
Noticed her laying up yesterday, figured she was just missing her kittens. Wife found her curled up in the rosebed this morning, not nearly as skittish as normal. As I said, she's what we call a barn cat, and she's not particularly tame. I told the wife that cat was headed South, and I don't let stuff suffer. Wife wanted to wait, but I knew better.
Walked in the house and grabbed my little .22 carbine. She didn't even raise her head up and I popped her behind the ear. Cat didn't die, so I shoveled her out from the house and shot her twice more in the head and once through the lungs. Y'all, that still did not kill the cat, and I'm out of bullets. I stepped over to the truck and picked up my Makarov, popped her again in the head and as best I could figure, through the heart. That did it.
Life ain't the movies and a man can be a lot tougher than house cat. Still, Calico was a mighty tuff cat...I noticed she was swollen and had blood on her hind legs, so she had to be bleeding internally. Still took six shots, two from a centerfire weapon.
Wasn't my favorite chore of the day...