Cat stories

I'm an animal lover and would never hurt one but, cats seem to know i don't like them so I've a couple of cat experiences that might explain why they know,
story one,
In my life of plumbing I was once a boiler engineer for Servowarm and covered all the northwest, One day I was in the Lancaster area and servicing a boiler in big house in a rural area and the house had a big drive and i parked my van in the drive and because it was remote, I left the van doors open while I was working there, When I finished I put my tools and equipment back in the van and headed for my next job which, was in Blackpool , As I'm going down the motorway I heard a ' meeoww' from the back of the van, I pulled in the hard shoulder and opened the back door and, A cat jumped out and ran into a field and, there was no way I was going to Chace it, So I shut the doors and carried on to my next job,
At the end of the day I got home and the service manager explained how the customer was concerned that her cat was missing and did I know anything about it, So I told them the truth and gave them the location where they might find the cat, I never had any feed back as to whether they found it or not,

Story 2 tomorrow,

I have a bird table with a wooden roof in the side garden and we can see it from the window . One day a cat was trying to get to the birds and with one leap ended up sat on the bird table Luckily did not get any birds but I ended up inserting Dowling between the table and the roof so cats cannot jump straight onto the table.

Good for you Peter.

Two good stories there. I've already told the story about my little cat and the baby bird in another thread, so I won't bore, but I will submit another true story soon. I have plenty.

Ok so Cat story two,

I was working in Leigh on Social housing installing central heating around 1984/5,
We would take approx 3 days from start to finish and I'm in a house who owned a lot of cats, I did't want to spend much time in that particular house because of the smell so I did it ' hurry up mode' and moved on as fast as I could, About 2 weeks later the occupier tracked me down and said that one of her cats was missing and she could hear it but could't work out where it was, A kindley neighbour worked out it was under the floorboards and she wanted me to investigate, So I went back and lifted the floorboards that I had took up to install the pipes and as soon as I did, We saw the cat there but, I could not get out because the pipes were filling the gap and it was jailed in. So I lifted an adjacent floor board and the cat flew out of the gap, It was clearly shaking in fear, hungry and thirsty, Curiosity nearly killed this cat, It must have gone under the boards when I was't looking and was then locked in for 2 weeks,

Had a moggie AWOL for six weeks...cost me £2000 to get him right...he lived till 18yrs of age...money well spent...don't have animals anymore

Tom:

Cats are very curious creatures and want to know what things are for.

One cat we had, Pepsi, when she was a kitten, she somehow she managed to drop behind a kitchen cupboard - goodness knows how. There was only one way to get her out and, at that time, we had a larder unit, so my partner had to take the back off to get her out.

As she got older, she was the boss (as most cats are), but she was boss of the other cats, as well as us. We gave her the nickname of Clerk of Works because, if one of us was up a ladder painting or decorating, she followed us up to make sure we were doing a good job.

She was also the only hunter we had and would being us live "presents", which included birds, moles, mice, and a lovely long thick juicy worm. Urgh.

We had a number of cats at the time, and our house never smelled of them because they went into our garden to use the toilet, and we kept everything spotless in the house.

Mr Biker:

Most of our cats lived to age 18 as well, some a little younger, and the only time any of them saw a vet was when they were being neutered as they never got ill, thank goodness.

Cats have cat flaps LINK

We used to have a Persian cat, however one day we were sat in the garden and a black and white cat came in and jumped on my knee.. she came everyday and Charley the Persian would frown.. my hubby took a photo of her, I went all around the estate to see if anyone recognised her, but nobody did, eventually we thought about taking her in.. after all we were feeding her anyway but couldn’t make our minds up.. now our Charlie wouldn’t wee in the house he always went on his litter tray just inside the back door .. he was getting on by this time and would go on his tray but forget to cover it up with his paw.. the cat that adopted us went to his tray sniffed at it and realised that he hadn’t cover his wee so..she did no more than cover it up for him so that was that we took her in for good named her Flossie and didn’t have a bad bone in her little body.. she was lovely .

What a lovely story, Momac. Cats that adopt us are very often the more affectionate and loving, which has been my experience over the years, which puts me in mind of Max.

At the time we had Ceilidh (previously mentioned) and Jinks who we brought back from Berlin with us.

Jinks was a grey tabby, and one afternoon I was sitting on the floor in the living room doing something, when the door opened, and a head popped in. It was a bright sunny afternoon and I thought it was Jinks, so I just said "Hiya lad." This cat opened the door further, walked past me, jumped on the couch and put his head down for a sleep, with one eye open on me. Max was a brown tabby and I mistook him for Jinks as the sun was in my eyes. Anyway, I said "Hiya, what's your name." He opened his mouth and the sound he made was Max, so I said okay Max, have a sleep.

When my partner came home from work he looked at the newcomer, then me, and I said "His name's Max." He stayed with us very happily, and Ceilidh and Jinks accepted him without a problem. He was a darling of a cat.

Cats have a sixth sense and i know that its true because,

I was going to a house that I've never been before, My job was to take off a radiator in the back room and replace it, So I knocked on the door and the owner welcomed me and showed me the back room, As i walked in with my tools and dust sheets, there as a cat sat in the corner and as soon as the cat saw me, It bolted to the sliding patio door to go out but, the sliding patio door was shut and the cat hit it at full gallop and it bashed against it and made a loud thud, Luckily for me the owner saw it all and was as astounded as I was why it did that ,

There's a simple answer to that, Tom. The cat had never seen you before so, to it, you invaded its home and it sensed danger. Cats, like dogs, can be very territorial.

My cat would do the same if you came into my house and, like you've already said, they're very perceptive as to who likes them or not, and they react to the body language you're not even aware of giving out. Mine flirts off out of the window when my brother visits, because she doesn't see him enough to get used to him. He's not particularly a cat lover, and the cat may smell the dog on him, so mine bolts as well.