Oreo (Felis catus)

This is Oreo. Isn’t she sweet? You wouldn’t know it to look at her but Oreo is a serial killer.

We have three cats: Oreo, Ginger, and Genji (named after the Japanese novel). Ginger and Genji are indoor cats. They are both mentally unstable.

Ginger is nervous and paranoid – scared of people, noise, shadows, and the outside world. She spends her days either sleeping or sitting on a stool in our sunroom, staring out the window. When she sees a bird, she chatters. She threw up in my shoe once.



At 15, Genji is a cat Blanche DuBois. She believes the world should adore her – maybe that’s normal for a cat. Genji tends to caterwaul late at night, mournfully, while carrying around socks or stuffed toys. We figure she is reflecting on the kitten she never had.

But what of Oreo, the serials killer? Well, it’s not entirely her fault. I taught her. Oreo is an outside cat, a barn cat. We got her to keep down the mice around the barn. Unlike Ginger and Genji, Oreo has a full set of front claws and knows how to use them. We use to catch mice in a humane trap, take them far away from the barn and release them. A couple of times I let mice go in close proximity of Oreo. It’s a hunting technique many predators practice with offspring. Oreo caught on quickly. She now hunts birds, moles, mice, and other small creatures. She sometimes shows us affection by leaving her catch on the front doorstep. One morning she left us something very special – the body of an adolescent rabbit, no head. Isn’t strange that a serial killer is our most mentally balanced cat?