I’ve killed animals prior to that event, but it was for hunting (but yeah Im no expert at all, I mostly shot small game and once hogs but I still wasn’t too sure of what I was doing). This cat was trapped in a cage and not happy about it. I can’t remember if it was a pellet gun or actual firearm but it was a .22 (my father used both .22 pellet guns and firearms when on his property). Either way he told me to just take it out back and shoot it through the cage. I tried to line up the barrel right to the back of its head with the intent of one shot and hes dead. But right as I pulled the trigger the cat moved and I just shot it in the face. It was really hard to shoot it anywhere meaningful while it was jumping around and screaming in there. Hence 4 more shots of my desperately trying to end its suffering. I really like cats so I didnt want it to suffer so much. I wanted it to be fast and painless. But this was the start of my fathers ‘swimming school’ as he called. When he came to the back yard to find me he saw the mess I made and his solution was to tie a rope to the cage and toss it into the river running through our backyard. He hold the rope as to not lose the cage. After some time the cat drowned and my dad left the body in the river. As he caught more cats he just stuck with his ‘swimming school’. It wasn’t until after the first cat died that we found out it was the neighbors cat. He would let his cat out at night. My father told me to not saying anything to the neighbor so I didn’t.

I would like to learn to butcher and clean, it seems like a useful skill but not one that is in my family so I never learned. Your take on it seems sensible, I like it. Much better than drowning cats