Learning About Cats Through Stories

CONTENTS

A SMART ENGLISH CAT

A SMART ENGLISH CAT

THE following interesting story is reported of a smart English cat that ate cheese, and then lured mice with its breath.

"I have a house cat with a remarkable appetite for cheese," writes a subscriber to a local Manchester, England, newspaper. "Every time cheese is placed on the table this cat sits and begs for some. Inquiring into the cause of this extraordinary taste, I discovered that the cat ate the cheese and then went to a mouse-hole in the woodwork of the house and blew his breath heavily into it. That was his way of enticing the mice to come out."

After breathing thus into the mouse-hole, the cat would move a short distance to one side and wait for the mice to appear, when he would pounce upon them.

All must admit that this was indeed a smart cat. How he got onto the trick is the interesting question. Perhaps he had observed that mouse-traps are generally baited with cheese. At any rate, he got hold of a "bright idea," hit on a novel and successful plan for catching mice, and exhibited more than ordinary animal sagacity.

AMAZING RESCUES BY CATS

This mysterious rapport, the extent to which animals so often live for, not just with, their owners, suggests that some form of telepathy may be at work here. Fabulous felines to the rescue have even saved their human owners from murder:

On her way home from working late at the TV studio, Sally was more than a little anxious. All she could think of was the diabolical night stalker who had already claimed eight victims in her neighborhood, all young women about Sally's age.

About a block from her apartment building, Sally was surprised to find her cat, Caramel, meowing frantically in the street just ahead of her.

Normally, the five-year-old tabby awaited Sally's return from the comfort of her apartment arm­chair. Puzzled at seeing Caramel in the street, Sally paused. Just before the cat could reach her, Sally was grabbed violently from behind and roughly dragged toward a waiting car.

Caramel's ear-splitting yowls distracted the attacker, who momentarily released his grip, just long enough for Sally to scream for help at the top of her lungs. The attacker fled.

Did Caramel leave the apartment to meet Sally because she knew the horrifying truth: that Sally might be victim number nine?

Frances Louise Martin lived alone in a remote area with her cat, Mouse. Mouse got her name because she was, well, a scaredy cat. Martin was sound asleep one night, with Mouse snoozing on the pillow next to her. Suddenly she was jarred awake. She saw a shadowy male figure looming over her so closely that she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

Just as the intruder started to speak (and who knows what he would have said?) Mouse came flying through the air, a spitting, clawing mass of fur who attached herself to the intruder's face. In panic and pain, the man careened around the room, with Mouse in tow. The would-be attacker upended furniture, flew through the house, found the front door and scrambled out. And the courageous cat never let go till he was out the door!

In her heroic effort, Mouse lost only one claw. But because she left it in her victim's tattered face, it was that much easier for the police to identify and arrest the intruder.

Cats have even protected people from harm by animaI attackers. Fluffy, a heroic cat from Sarasota, Florida, jumped between his lucky owner and a ready­to-pounce four-foot-Iong rattlesnake. Fluffy quite literally took it on the chin, getting the snake's venomous bite instead of his master. Happily, brave Fluffy made a complete recovery. And as we've seen, some of the most incredible cat heroes are the wartime wonders. There are entire battalions of them. During World War II, anxious Europeans probed the skies for sights and sounds of a possible air raid. Many soon discovered they could rely on the furry pet curled up at the hearth for up-to-the-minute reports.

Most cats, it has been reported, showed unmistakable signs of agitation long before air-raid sirens sounded. Some even knew whether a particular family was in danger.

One cat would alert his owners to an impending attack by jumping up and scratching their gas masks hanging on the wall. Then, remarkably, he would run to the neighbor's house next door and do the same.

The cat's ability to save lives by predicting raids in wartime England was so prized that many were given the Dickin medal, a special award inscribed "We Also Serve", for animal heroes.

Finally, apart from saving human lives, cats even seem to have an uncanny knack for protecting other animals. They've shown remarkable tenderness to animals they normally shun, like the cat that suckled a dead dog's puppies, or another that nursed three young abandoned squirrels as if they were her own flesh and blood.

A cat named Fingal was a regular four­legged branch of the ASPCA. The pet turtle of Fingal's family had a habit of falling over onto his back and getting stranded there, unable to right himself.

Whenever this happened, Fingal would run excitedly to some member of the family and lead them to the rescue. And if one of the household's pet rabbits took sick, Fingal would be the watchful nurse until the crisis passed.

These provocative tales appeared in Cats magazine:

 One night, a farm horse got a leg caught in the jaws of a farm machine and, unable to free itself because its harness was somehow tangled up in the mess, was slowly being strangled.

The family's black cat Freddie, who usually slept in the barn, managed to get into the farm­house, leaped onto the stomach of its owner, and kept racing back and forth from the bed to the window alerting them in time to save the filly.

 Evangeline Seper had a cat named Totry, a shy tortoiseshell that had been lifelong friends with a stray tom named Pewter. One night, Totry "meowed" Seper awake from the yard out­side.

But when the sleep-dazed Seper went to the window, she saw only some nondescript shadows beneath the big tree in the yard. Hearing no further cries, Seper promptly went back to sleep. When she woke the next morning and checked beneath the tree, she found Totry sprawled on top of an extremely ill Pewter.

Failing to awaken Seper during the night, Totry had apparently decided to keep Pewter warm and protected until morning by putting her body over his.

 Mitts, a seven-toed tomcat, was normally very aloof. So it didn't surprise Oori Giehrl one bit that Mitts completely ignored the abandoned newborn kitty Giehrl had found.

After several days, it was apparent that even Giehrl's valiant efforts were not saving the life of the gray kitten, which she'd named Spunky. The kitten was breathing its last.

Suddenly Mitts leaped into Spunky's tiny box, frightening Giehrl half to death. Naturally, she expected to see Spunky dangling from Mitts' jaws.

Instead, she found Mitts licking the teeny gray stray, just like a mother-cat would. From then on, Mitts became a foster dad, eventually helping Spunky survive.

Of course, when the crisis passed, Mitts totally ignored Spunky once again. Typical.