Cats... they're vicious killing machines in our back yards

Possibly noting the blood drain from my face, my friend quickly reassured me that he wasn't about to send me another teenager. No, this mystery individual was in fact a member of my favourite species, a representative from the rabbit kingdom.

Why yes, of course. When would said rodent like to take up residence, I inquired, making a mental note to ask my neighbour for an extra bag of sawdust next time he was down the joinery shop.

Whenever you like, replied my fellow hack. Oh, and by the way - the hutch and the feeding tackle's included, he added. I don't suppose you could bring several weeks' supply of food and bedding as well, I ventured... no, perhaps not. Worth a try.

Black Jack - a truly stunning Rex with a coat the texture of moleskin - arrived in due course, clutching a small, shiny new suitcase holding a toothbrush, comb, school cap and letter of introduction.

After a guided tour around the estate, Jack was introduced to Lewis and Daisy. After a few weeks, he settled down to life on Happiness Row, where there's always lots to eat, drink, the hay smells like finest perfume, the carrots grow on trees and the season is always summer.

Yes, rabbits make the finest pets. They are hardy, non-aggressive, don't make any noise and will happily eat vegetable scraps. As long as they are kept dry and out of draughts, the rabbit will live quite healthily.

Rabbits also don't tend to bite. But more importantly, they do not wish to attack, kill and eat other animals.

This is now a big plus for me. For rabbits are the very opposite to cats, creatures for which I once felt great affection, but are now the recipients of my disdain.

However, for those of you nestling by the fireside with that beloved bundle of fluff called Tibbles, Khan or Bunter, let me dissuade you from pouring a tin of tuna-in-jelly over my head by explaining why I should feel like this.

The reason is simple. I'm fed up to the back teeth with cats' capacity for destruction. It wasn't always so - for years, my wife and I gave a home and sustenance to a couple of feral moggies that had been discovered in a hedge.

Despite being given the finest food and provided with accommodation of the highest quality, these two reprobates would invariably spurn supermarket grub for the wild game that lived around our abode.

Now, before one of you writes in to say what did you expect from a cat, then allow me to suggest to you that it is all a question of degree. Every cat will try to catch and kill other animals, but these two were truly serial killers.

Their staples were finches. Yes, gold, green, bull, chaffinches... you name it, if it was a pretty little bird, then all the better. Plentiful sparrows and starlings were rarely ripped apart.

And there was one hateful incident that will forever go down in infamy as the May Massacre when an entire family of song thrushes were slaughtered without mercy.

I will never forget this avian bloodbath, partly because I was then forced to rear the single surviving fledgling, which, after a while, forgot his murdered mum and dad and assumed I was the parent bird.

This is why every time I tried to release him (or her) along the canal towpath, the tragic birdbrain hopped along after me with a reproachful look on his beak as if to say: "Dad - don't fly so fast. And what are we doing in this God-forsaken place? And where is my meal of chopped worms, cabbage caterpillars and woodlice?"

This poor orphan came to a tragic demise, the story of which will related in some future Phillpott File. Suffice to say that my meddling with Nature came to nought in the end. For it was decreed that young Buzby - for that was his (her) name - should have died in the jaws of Bertie and Babs, our two resident psycho-cats. My intervention merely delayed destiny.

If there are still sentimentalists out there who like to think of themselves as realists, let me complete this tale of murder and mayhem with the account of their most brutal deed, one which blotted - no stained red with blood - their copybook.

One summer, we were treated to the nightly visit of either Bertie and Babs clutching a mouse, shrew or vole. This pathetic tiny bundle of fur and tiny, goofy teeth would then be batted across the lino in a grotesque form of tennis.

Often, a leg or two would be lost in this horrid kind of feline Wimbledon, the poor crippled creature attempting to escape, only to be thwacked back at the last moment on to a centre court framed by the Welsh dresser and the wastebin.

And this is why I kept a stick by the back door - to dispatch that night's victim and end its torment.

But the ultimate bloodbath came that August, when our two "pets", working as a team dragged a rabbit through the catflap. This was then dismembered and its body parts distributed around the kitchen.

There was even worse to come when an angry father hammered on my door complaining that Babs had snatched his daughter's hamster from the mat and promptly sent it to that great wheel in the sky.

Cats. Don't you just love them. And, nearer the present, my neighbours lost a prize goldfish, hooked out of its pond by the Siamese chocolate point living a few doors down the street.

To add insult to injury, this so-called aristocat didn't even have the decency to eat his catch.

The fish was left to expire on the concrete, flopping into oblivion while its assassin sloped of to destroy something else.

It is symptomatic of today's selective, judgemental society that we readily accept other people's cats into our gardens, defecating over the flowerbeds, scratching up seedlings and destroying wildlife with abandon.

Cats show no loyalty to man nor beast, being completely absorbed in themselves. There is but one motivating force... to kill, kill and kill yet more until the garden path is littered with body fragments.

I wish cats no harm. By all means write in and say I'm mistaken about these admittedly beautiful creatures, but please come up with something a little more original and thought-provoking than "it's only natural" and "I had a cat called Kylie for 15 years and she was a vegetarian".

You see, my mind is made up. There is no longer any need for me to try to impress women, masquerading as a cat lover.

But now, my companions from the animal world are of the gentler variety. They do no harm, and spend their lives displaying exemplary conduct towards their fellow creatures. They don't cost much and take up very little time in care and attention.

Yes - rabbits. So come all ye, whether Rex, Dutch, Tan, Beveren or Old English White. My hutch door is always open.