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Gathering Of Cats

Just some thoughts - was one of the Cats on heat I wonder? That would make them gather together, or perhaps a smell not unlike a cat on heat. Or perhaps a catnip type smell?
 
Shaggy Dogs or Talking Cats?

When I was young we had a lovely friendly large black moggy who liked to be outside as much as possible. He used to stand by the back door and yowl continuously when he wanted to be let out, but one evening I remember I was in the kitchen when he strolled up to the door, looked at me, and simply said "Out!". I was very impressed at the time, although I suppose the most likely explanation is that he was merely miaowing "Owwwwwww" as usual, and choked halfway though, thus giving the illusion of a "t" syllable. It really did sound like "Out", though.

Some rather more dramatic Talking Cat stories can be found in the About archives here:

http://paranormal.about.com/library/blt ... sychic.htm
 
My last cat - Katsu-o, who unfortunately passed away last year - would converse with me even though his voice didn't sound remotely human. He could, however, emulate our inflections such that he could be understood. It sounds absolutely crazy, but he could do it (ask questions: "Meow?")

What's more is that he and I seemed to have an almost telepathic connection. I know that animals can often read us in ways that we don't read each other, and perhaps that was it, but it was strange and wonderful. We didn't "grow up" together - in fact, I only had him for a year before he developed terminal cancer. Our bond was pretty much immediate, however.

Good to have friends like that in one's life.

I'm inclined to believe there's a lot more going on with cats than most of them are willing to let on. But if you're cool with them, they'll show you once in a while. :D
 
I use to have a cat named Jadbalja who had a verry peculiar way of meowing. He often seemed to break his meows up into sylables. While I don't think he was trying to say anything specific every once in a while he's spit out a similacra of a word and startle everybody in the room. On several ocasions I could swear he would say my name. "Bi-lly". I've also heard that ferral cats don't meow. It's something that domesticated cats (and I use the term loosly) develope because humans respond more to vocal stimulous than anything else. Heh, It's funny tht I see this thread after I pick up a copy of the cartoon "The Cat Returns".
 
Just read that thread Gemaki. A real eye-opener. :shock: Thanks.

Dib
 
You're welcome!

I just re-read it, too... about the cats that understand your speech without a second thought.... our cat Shelby is the one who talks, and she is also obedient like a dog. When we do take them outside, she despises the leash, so she's usually without one. All I have to do is say, OK, Shel, time to go in, and she'll run to the door. (Meishka, however, doesn't realize being on a leash will foil her attempt to stay outside, and it's a guaranteed fight complete with howling.) Shelby will know what I mean when I tell her there's a bug on the ceiling, etc ..... and she'll come running when I call her name. Funny I've never thought about it before. I even remember one of the times we were all outside, and the neighbor was standing there, I told Shel it was time to go in, and he said "Oh, yeah, like she's going to.... HEY! How did you DO that?!"
 
A man is walking down an old trail towards his cottage. He hears some rustling noises, and when he peers through the bushes he sees a huge procession of cats, all in a long line. On the backs of the cats at the front of the line is a small coffin with a crown on it. They stop at a small hole dug into the earth and lower the coffin in. At this, the man stumbles away alarmed and unsettled, and hurries home to his cottage. Once inside, he relays the amazing sight to his wife. At the end of the tale, their cat, previously lounging in front of the fire, suddenly looks up and says, "then I am now King of the Cats!", and bolts out the door never to be seen by the couple again.

I read that story. In a book of ghost stories about the Catskills I think (although I could be getting mixed up). The version I read was a little different though. There was no coffin, they were just carrying a dead cat. And when he told his wife, the cat didn't say anything, he just raced up the chimney. That's the version I read, anyway.

On my first day of Kindergarten my mom told me that while I was gone our cat Jenny said "Where's <my name>?" I now believe that my mom was probably just making that up to entertain me, seeing how I was so young, but you never know I guess. Also, if you walk in the room and say "hi Rajah" she will more than likely meow back in a way that sounds just like "hi". My dad gets a real kick out of this. I can communicate with Rajah though! If she rests her head or paw on me it means "keep petting me" and if she bites me it means "go away." And if walking past the couch on which Jenny's "nest" is located and she meows it means "Queen Jenny demands to be petted now or you will be beheaded."

As long as I can remember I have always wondered if maybe cats are actually alien beings disguising themselves as pets. They are just so mysterious. And yes, they can be very creepy, but that's part of what makes me love them so much. They're just plain amazing animals.
 
I once saw a tv prog about a large group of cats who live in and around the Roman ruins of the city of rome. They can gather in quite large numbers together, forming colonies quite naturaly in the wild. They often have the "head cat" or boss cat in the middle or sitting above them, in some or other form of showing its leadership or as a challenge to others.
 
Maybe they're just all sitting around waiting for the mothership.
 
Sometime in the late 70’s/ early 80’s my brother described the following incident to me.

We lived on the edge of town and close to where we lived was a long road, a cul-de-sac, which if you followed it all the way would eventually take you right up onto the moors. The town end of the road had 1930’s semis on either side but as you headed up towards the moors habitation became sparser - older cottages and the odd ruined farm building. About halfway up and set back from the road in the middle of a field is a derelict farm. I always wondered why it was abandoned as it looked very picturesque - set in a small hollow, hemmed by small trees and with its own walled garden, the whole place surrounded by fields and with the moors rising behind it.

One late summers day my brother was cycling past this field when he noticed a couple of cats sitting on the dry-stone wall that bordered it. He stopped to stroke one when he noticed that there were a large number of cats in the field - lots of them - more than he‘s ever seen in one place at one time. What unnerved him was that all the animals were sitting absolutely motionless in a large, ragged circle surrounding the derelict farm, facing inwards towards the building as if waiting for something to happen. My brother cycled home to get me and we both sped back to have a look. When we arrived there were still a lot of cats in the field but, much to my disappointment, there weren’t as many as there had been and they weren’t displaying the behaviour he had described seeing.

I can vividly recall the day - it was an early evening on one of those late summer days when the sky is heavy with the promise of thunderstorms and when the air feels full of electricity. I’ve often wondered whether the animals behaviour was something to do with that. Anyone brought up in rural surroundings will tell you how animals will behave bizarrely before and during a storm - I have a vivid memory from when I was very young of looking out onto our fields to see hundreds of sheep standing totally still, as if frozen, all facing in exactly the same direction as a thunderstorm passed over them.

My brother’s always been a very pragmatic sort with little interest in the supernatural or the simply weird but there is no doubt in my mind that something about the incident really unnerved him. Its funny how emotions can transfer themselves to other people and, although I didn’t share the experience, the slightly spooky sense of the peculiar rubbed off onto me and to this day whenever I hear or read the word “uncanny” a snippet of memory from that particular summers day flashes into my head.
 
I have witnessed these cat-parliaments on a few occasions and there usually does seem to be one cat in the middle.

Like many cat stand-offs, it consists mainly of long periods of doing nothing and affected indifference followed by sudden busts of violent activity and unholy shrieking. The activity only occurs when humans have given up watching - so it remains wickedly mysterious.

Spring is in the air, so it seems the season for it. As I recounted in the Cats thread in Chat, a tom? cat was attacking my back door last week. My neighbours have recently acquired a cat, so I think it was just calling at the wrong house.

My theory is that the male cat-parliament has encircled a cat on heat, discussed what to do and then sent out messengers to find a tom who is actually capable of doing the deed. :miaow:
 
My Cat Hendrix,

My cat has the neat name of Hendrix, I gave it to him when I caught him in a friends back yard, over 5 years ago. His mother was wild, and she had her litter in a derelict shed at the bottom of this garden, with no creature comforts, only a scraggy old carrier bag to keep her dry from the seeping rain that came underneath the rotting wood hut. All I can remember seeing, was a litter of about 7, all different colours, ranging from white thru' to black. The garden was full of overgrown weeds and shrubs, and it took me over a bloody hour to catch the little black one that I'd seen. He was so small, that I could fit him into the palm of my hand, and he was so scared for a week or so. The kids fell in love with him straight away! It took me a week to find out that he was a tom because he was so young, and I could have sworn that he was a female, he has a very feminine looking face for a tom cat. Anyway, I've recently lerant just how fiesty he is, he's always fighting the bigger cats at the bottom of the garden, and he's still got some wild cat in him, even though he does like his home comforts most times. He sits on the step, patrolling, and I'm sure he'd fight a dog if one invaded his territory! He's quite pysched too, but aren't they all. One evening, I was walking home from the shop, and I heard a tinkling sound approaching me from behind, I thought it was a whipper snapper after my ankle or something, it was dark, and lo and behold, it was my cat, running along side me like a puppy dog! I've had him for four or five years now and he virtually talks to me sometimes. Though just lately, he's banned from the living room, as his long persian fur stinks after being sprayed by other cats. He HATES being bathed! I had to get my son to corner him in the shower room one night, just so that he could rub some flea powder into him without him taking off with a huff on! My son came out of the shower looking like some Freddy Kruga victim. Cats are amaxing creatures to own, much calmer than dogs, and they look after themselves. He's currently learning to play a Fender Strat!! :lol:
 
Talking about the cats' intellect . . . This happened to me yesterday afternoon. I was walking along a street bordered by a school sports field where some kids were playing baseball. On the other side of the road there were some houses. In front of one of them there was a white cat sitting and watching the game with such an intense interest you wouldn't expect from an animal. I mean, he was really watching the game, as guys would watch a game on TV. As I was passing by, our eyes met and I gave him a friendly nod and a wink that was supposed to mean "Having a good time, eh?" And he just looked at me straight in the eye and gave me a nod and a blink as if saying "Sure thing!". I was so stunned that - for whatever reason - just nodded and winked again. And he did exactly the same thing - returned my greeting again by tossing up and down his head and quickly blinking, then went back to watching the players. Never met him before, it was in a strange neighbourhood. How about that? :)
 
ah knew this thread was around here somewhere

anyway here's my very first IHTM

In 1986 my parents got a couple of cats (brother and sister) from a local cat rescue place. Because we lived on a main A road and a busy B road ran close to the back of our garden my Dad built a cat run attached to the back of the house for the cats so they could go outside but without the risk of getting run over. They could access the run through a cat flap built into the bathroom wall.

Dad had built the run prior to the cats' arrival and they were allowed to go out into it immediately (I should probably mention here that the cats were 6 mths old and had never been outside at all so for them to live indoors mainly but have access to the run when they wanted to go outside wasn't necessarily cruel).

Early in the morning (probably 4-5am) the day after we had got the cats I woke up needing the toilet, luckily it was downstairs so I had an excuse to go down and see the cats! I went downstairs, couldn't see them so assumed they were in their run. I then went out the backdoor to check and round the side of the house to the run.

It was still very dark but I could make out that both the cats were at the end of the run not near the house both peering intently into the garden. At the same time I started to hear various cat type noises coming from the garden (not necessarily meows but those greeting noises that cats can make sometimes), I then noticed that there were several pairs of cats eyes shining in the darkened garden.

What struck me was the amount of cats that appeared to be in the garden. I'm sure there were at least 6 - 10 but they started vanishing soon after I came out.

To me it felt like the neighbourhood cats had come to greet our new cats as they were new to the area and perhaps let them know the cat hierarchy for neighbourhood!

Very strange but not at all frightening.
 
Gemaki said:
Hmm, check this out....

How Can You Identify A Cat Cult?

Cat cults are found primarily indoors and involve more than one cat.

The Warning Signs

Here is a list of warning signs that your cats may be members of a cult.

http://squirrelhazing.squirrelsinblack. ... cults.html
or click HERE

Cat Chess:

“This needs, as the playing area, something the size of a small village. Up to a dozen cats can take part. Each cat selects a vantage point—a roof, the coal house wall, a strategic corner or, in quiet villages, the middle of the road—and sits there. You think it’s just found a nice spot to sun itself until you realise that each cat can see at least two other cats. Moves are made in a sort of high-speed slink with the belly almost touching the ground. The actual rules are a little unclear to humans, but it would seem that the object of the game is to see every other cat while remaining unseen yourself. This is just speculation, however, and it may well be that the real game is going on at some mystically higher level unobtainable by normal human minds, as in cricket.” - Terry Pratchett, 'The Unadulterated Cat'

This chap seems to have done more 'research'.........

http://www.flippyscatpage.com/catchess.html
 
Desmond Morris knows

The first post in this thread probably describes normal cat behaviour where a group of cats get together, check each other out and sometimes mate. Several toms may mount a queen. There could be fights. If disturbed, the group may disperse.
 
I've been watching this thread for a couple of days debating whether I should post this. The reason for my reluctance will be obvious in a moment.

It was a Saturday in December about twenty years ago. My wife and I had both slept late and were still lounging about the bed. I was reading, she was writing Christmas cards. Our newest cat (we had three at that time) jumped up on the bed and walked over to the window (our bed was against the wall). With one paw, he pushed aside the curtain and stuck his head behind it. Then in a cat-like voice he said, "Oh look, it's snowing!" I don't think I've been so startled in my life. I looked at my wife who looked back at me with eyes the size of saucers. Friend, that was his name, then pulled his head back from behind the curtain, gave us an odd look and scampered out of the room.

He was a stray who adopted us only a few weeks before. We named him friend because he was the friendliest beastie we had ever known. His love for attention and effection was actually dog-like. He never spoke again, though we had him for another fourteen years.

If my wife hadn't witnessed it too, I would have questioned my grip on reality. As it is we rarely speak of it, even to each other. Neither our parents nor our kids (who weren't born yet) know about it. It's just too strange to tell them.

By the way, when I lookeed outside, it was snowing.

Dib

(Edited for grammar and spelling.)
Nice post the thread deserves a summons.
 
A flat mate I once had told me about the time he walked into the kitchen after midnight and found a group of cats sitting around and on the table as if they were having a sedate cat party there. They had come in through the cat flap in the door. His own cat was nowhere to be seen.

Another story I once heard from someone else was an account of the night he and his wife were on vacation in a B & B when a parade of cats came in one window and went out another.

Cats!
 
A flat mate I once had told me about the time he walked into the kitchen after midnight and found a group of cats sitting around and on the table as if they were having a sedate cat party there. They had come in through the cat flap in the door. His own cat was nowhere to be seen.

I'm sure that there's a Fat Freddy's Cat cartoon about that. Darned if I can find a copy though.
 
Here is a scientific report on the social life of cats:
https://spring2017.iaabcjournal.org/cat-social-lives/
"A cat’s social life begins early on at birth when interactions are focused around the mother and littermates. . . . Although it was often thought that cat colonies were nothing but random aggregations of individuals around a food source, research has indicated that cats socialize non-randomly with preferred associates, or individuals they are significantly more likely to interact with and spend time near."

No mention of cat imitating the human voice, but as the author says, "Only through additional research will we be able to further examine the social lives of cats."
 
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