Their little feline hearts were in the right place as they tried to teach
little Beatrice to hunt, but they needed a better subject.

The young buck in the backyard knows the difference between cougars and
felis domesticus, but my owners seem to be unaware of the fact that they are
not cougars or tigers.

First, Abelard spent about five minutes closing the distance of roughly
twenty feet and was preparing to pounce and kill, then the buck took a step
in his direction, looking for all the world like he was ready to touch noses
in introduction. Abelard was so badly spooked that he ran off.

Then, from the opposite direction came Billy. His technique involved less of
the low-crouching slow creep and more quick creeps when the prey is looking
the other way. And even though Billy is triple the size of Abelard, the buck
still knew this felis is not a threat, and attempted to make a new friend.
On top of nearly leaping out of his own skin, poor Billy was obviously
embarrassed.

Next, the mighty huntress  Lily  stepped in to show the two boy-cats How It
Is Done. Lily is smart enough to know that when stalking an animal that has
eyes on the sides of its head, you come in directly from the front, so that
the prey animal only sees a blur. And you make sure to drive it into very
tall grass, if possible, to give it a harder time seeing what's going on.
Then you back it into a corner where it is fenced in....

But Lily, too, suffered an embarrassing failure, when the buck in one
graceful leap was over the fence and into the woods.

How much damage this dreadful hunting lesson has done to Beatrice remains to
be seen.

The moment I noticed Abelard starting to stalk, I wanted to start taping,
but I would have missed the whole show if I had tried.