In Texas, I lived in Austin for more than 20 years.  My wife and I moved to a small town an hour north of it called Salado.  We were waayyyy out in the country.  We had wild turkey and hoards of 8 point deer running around in the back yard.  I hosted a regular poker game every Saturday that would usually last until 4 a.m. or so.  My wife is an RN that works the night shift in Austin so she doesnt get home until 8 or so in the morning.

One Sunday morning she comes into my house sobbing uncontrollably.  Since she works in neonatal intensive care, I assume that a baby died on her shift and she feels responsible.  When I ask her what was wrong, she says, Something ripped my cats face off.

Now I dont take her literally.  Nothing actually ripped the face off of her cats skull.  But Im certain that her cat has been badly injured.  I jump out of bed and go outside to check, still in my underwear (like I said, waaaayyy out in the country).  Her cat is in the front yard and its face has literally been pulled from its skull.  It only has one eye remaining and there are clearly perforations in the top of its skull where something has penetrated.  The cat moved a little and let out a little, pathetic, meow.

My first instinct is to walk inside, get a .22 target pistol, and pop off to a better place, kitty.  Then I consider the fact that Im not a vet.  Maybe its not as bad as it looks.  My wife and daughter would both want me to make every effort to save it.  I run into the garage to get the cat carrier for my vet trip.  We have a pet door in the garage and kitty must have taken refuge in there before going out front to die.  It looks like a CSI crime scene in there.  Blood is literally everywhere.  I had no idea that cats had that much fluid in them.

Undeterred, I stuff the cat in the carrier and race to the vet.  At some point during the trip, the cat died.  The Vet was cool and didnt charge me for the examination or the disposal of the body.  He said it was an owl that did it.  We had 3 great horned owls in my 2 acre backyard.  There were two tenors and a baritone.  Wed hear them talking all night during our poker game outside on the porch.  Hoot...  Hoot... and then HOOT.  Ill bet it was the baritone that got him.