h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I submit that my feline, a little gray h*llcat named "Idgit", is in the running.

For no apparent reason, last night at 2AM, she decided it was critically important to remove the bandaid from my right thumb. I was sleeping at the time, and thus not terribly interested in her efforts to start a medical career!

I've other stories about her, and her predecessors, but this one sprang to mind since it just happened overnight.

Why? What makes cats tick? And what random acts of weirdness have other people's cats can the rest of you share?

One of our cat's left us a lovely present one night. We got into bed, I thought I could smell something musty, but couldn't locate it, and awoke in the morning to find we had lain on a dead mouse, not a fresh one you understand, but a sort of squishy not been alive for sometime one. When we found it, it was the size of a soup plate and ground into the sheet. Claire (the cat in question) had never successfully caught anything, but instead had done her best to provide us with a nourishing snack, bless her little cotton socks.

Sally, another cat, came in with a sausage on a cocktail stick

Our current cat arrived through the cat flap with a freshly cooked joint of roast beef one sunday lunchtime... I haven't dared to mention it to any neighbours in case it was their lunch she stole!

My first cat, Cat Ballou, constructed her own cat door. I was living in an ANCIENT trailer. I'm not exaggerating...this trailer had been condemned once, resurrected, and lived in for most of 10 years before I got there! Anyway, she shredded a hole in the wall between my bedroom and the bathroom. The hole came out behind the tub, and she enlarged the opening for the pipes so she could crawl out under the trailer. I didn't understand how she kept getting outside when I KNEW I left her in...

Why? Just to amuse us? To amuse themselves?

Sounds like yours have at least been fine providers! (wink)

The smallest of my 5 kitties either brings us yellow rubber gloves, or whacking great koi carp in the summer. No, we don't mention the carp to anyone else.

Another one likes to chew on my hair.



But the sausage on a cocktail stick!! Fantastic...

My cat (now deceased) was afraid of the Starship Enterprise. When the Star Trek music started he would get very uneasy as he knew the warp drives were about to engage very soon. At the point where the Enterprise jumps to warp speed, the cat would also use his own warp engines to exit the room.

I've got a pretty strange cat. When he's indoors he's scared of his own shadow. The slightest noise will make him bolt. But this same cat has been known to bring in fully grown pigeons and rats through the cat flap. Strange.
If you want to understand what makes a cat tick then I recommend "Catwatching" by Desmond Morris.

So does anyone know of any unwierd cats?

We provide temporary shelter to our next door neighbours cat (s/he likes to check that we are keeping the house ok....does a quick patrol, tries to climb in the fridge and might sit on the couch for a few minutes before leaving).

This poor old scragbag can hardly walk because its hips have seized up....and yet occassionally we will catch it strutting along the roof...god knows how it got up - it has trouble jumping up onto a seat never mind onto a roof.

One of my cats (Ghengis) used to bring dead in all the time, until I got so cross that I shouted at him and chucked both and out into the garden.

Sometime later I heard a yowling by the back door - I went to check and found Ghengis sitting there with a piece of veggie pizza that he'd brought in for me and with a questioning look on his face....

Damn smart !

The veggie pizza is classic! I can just hear the mental discussion: "OK, so the meat didn't go over very well. Maybe this human is a vegetarian! Now where can I find a salad..."

My second cat, Meowzer, thought he was a dog. When I'd take my dogs out to run, he'd do his best to keep up with us. But when he'd get tired and have to stop, he wouldn't be able to see us for all the brush, so he'd get scared and start yowling. I'd start calling to him so he could find us, and he'd come running again, still yowling. Sounded like a tiny siren across the desert. When he caught up, he'd sit and clean his paws and try to look nonchalant..."Me, scared? Why on earth would you ask such a silly question!?!?!"

There is this patch of carpet in the living room that all 5 cats like to sniff and then roll on. Now, I have investigated this patch. It's underneath the window. It doesn't smell of anything...

One of the cats once brought in a sparrow. After 20 minutes of me washing his mouth out and severely remonstrating him, he got the idea that it wasn't a good idea to it again.

BTW - Did everyone know that frogs squeak? Found this out last summer when a few turned up in the garden and the kitties started to chase them. Bloody loud they are!!!

Sometimes I think cats do things like sniff at a pointless patch of carpet just to mess with our heads!

I'll look for that book, "Catwatching." I'm really more of a dog person at heart, but the more I'm around cats, the more I wonder just how they're wired.

I'm very much enjoying stories showing that ALL cats are weird, not just my particular kids.

My not-quite girlfriend has a cat named Harvey who has a strange obsession with my feet. Whenever I visit, Harvey goes right for my feet and walks around sniffing them for hours on end. I'm not really sure what's so interesting about my feet.

My cat is currently lying quietly on a sleeping bag on my front porch, curled up with the collie who comes up to visit from the ranch down the road. The collie who, according to his owners, despises cats.

Seems to get along swimmingly with Idgit, though.

Of course, since the collie seems to prefer living at my house (he's been here for nearly 2 weeks this time) I have to wonder just how much his owners really know or care about him, anyway.

's and 's living together...one of the biblical signs of the apocalypse, or just a day in the life?

Well, i've had about ten or so cats over the years, all living together quite happily along with our rats, guinea pigs and cocker spaniels.
I can't think of many funny stories but one of our cats once vanished off for ages and came back with a smoked haddock in his mouth ^_^

The last time any of my cats brought in meat, it was a rat. More precisely, half a rat...the rear half. Into my living room.

My Jake came home sans collar one day and after having a good look round we decided we had to buy him a new one. He obviously didn't like the new collar though. How did we find this out? About a week later he woke us up at around 6am by miaowing loudly outside the bedroom - when we went to see what was wrong we saw him sitting there with his old collar on the floor beside him - a bit muddy and worse for wear but he made it clear that was the one he wanted!

My Charlie is always on the bed when I get undressed at bed-time. I have to give him my t-shirt or sweater to "tread" or he gets very upset and miaows at me. Every night without fail!! When I am away I have to leave one piece of worn clothing unwashed for him to curl up on. What a mummy's boy!

Cats - I love 'em!

They're stars aren't they!
I've had a fair few cats over the years and they've all got up to similar sorts of (mis)behaviour. I'm with PQ in asking is there any such thing as a NON-weird cat!
But the most disturbing thing with one of my current fluffy treasures is when he DOES WHAT HE IS TOLD. Just freaks me out.

Unnerving, isn't it? They only behave to keep you off balance!

We had one , a little kitten. She'd fit on a dinnerplate. We also had a , a labrador-sized mongrel. Little kitten would stalk up to the dog, put a paw on her nose and pretty much force her down to the ground for a bath. And the dog would just lay there, looking terrified

My kitten likes to play with my answering machine.

How do I know? When I woke suddenly at 1:30 am to voices! After a heart-stopping minute, I realized I was listening to a message from a friend of mine from a few days before that....when I got into the dining room where the machine is, I caught Missy looking pleased as punch, standing on the message button!

I had had friends who kept asking me why I hadn't got back to them, they left me a message.....

SC