The responsibilities of an indoor cat

This is Purrl, our last indoor/outdoor cat.

He was fourteen years old when he departed last January.

Purrl was the last of a long line of indoor/outdoor cats who took the business of rodent eradication (and the occasional bird) seriously.

This is Toby.

He takes his job of surveillance equally seriously.

Like a general with no army.

Toby is not so sure about outdoors.

He two excursions between the legs of a grocery laden two footer coming in the door have been stopped short by "Where do you think you're going, young man! Get back in the house!"

And Toby obediently trotted back up the ramp and into the house.

Even the mice he has waylaid have not inflamed his desire for more from the outdoors, which they smell of. 

Toby simply comes into the living room with the butt and tail of the evidence protruding from his lips,

and a completely unharmed but greatly startled mouse is deposited on the railing when Toby is carried out and instructed, "Drop it."

Toby sits in the window watching my handicapped bird at the feeder.

The bird is not a sparrow, but a house finch. Watching it up close (and it lets me within a couple feet of it), the bird's wings are deformed, the cause of the hovercraft style of locomotion.

Toby keeps track of the finch through the studio window.

And the chipmunks, squirrels, and doves on the ground, and the incessent squadrons of birds at the feeders.

And then there are the chipmunks. 

Without Purrl, we have companies of chipmunks in residence.

They completely ignore Toby,

who, in retalliation, ignores them as completely.

Toby deigns to overtly betray his presence to the little intruders.

See how perfectly they understand each other!

The appearance of the "Neighborhood Cat" however,

and the chipmunk disappears 

and Toby flys from window to window to let Neighborhood Cat know this house is completely defended by the indoor cat.