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Conference misery::feline_v1

Title:Meower Power is Valuing Differences
Notice:FELINE_V1 is moving 1/11/94 5pm PST to MISERY
Moderator:MISERY::VANZUYLEN_RO
Created:Sun Feb 09 1986
Last Modified:Tue Jan 11 1994
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5089
Total number of notes:60366

154.0. "The Great Cat Mystery" by SHOGUN::HEFFEL () Fri Oct 04 1985 12:11

   My story of the great television nystery reminded me of another mystery,
which I'll put as a reponse to this note.  

   How about you?  Have your cats done anything that you never (or for a
long time) figured out how they did?  Or why they were doing it?   Or why
they were doing it then?

tlh

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154.1SHOGUN::HEFFELFri Oct 04 1985 12:2942
   My cat Cinnamon is our problem child.  Aside from being very sensitive
to fleas which dictates that we should keep inside, he's a neurotic cat and
decided this past year that he can longer stand to be one fo the crowd. 
He therefore started washing his back hips until the fur came off and the
skin was raw.  After many trips to the vet, numerous baths and countless
flea sprayings, we could no longer avoid the conclusion that he just wanted
to be able to get away from the rest of the crowd.  We started letting him
out when we were at home to let him eget used to the great outdoors while
we could keep an eye on him to make sure he was OK and rescue him if he needed
to be rescued.  Finally, one day, we bit the bullet and decided that he was
doing ok so we'd let him out while we were at work.  I let him out when I
left.  Gary left a few minutes after I did.  Cinnamon alwalys stays very
 close to the house.  Often not even leaving the carport.  So when I got
home and called and called and he didn't come and didn't come I was almost
frantic.  (This cat *always* comes when I call.)  I decided to go inside
an put on some woods-tromping shoes and go look for him.  I unlocked the
door and who should greet me but Cinnamon... *inside the house*!!  I called
Gary to see if he had let him in.  He said no and he knew that Cinnamon had
not slipped in while he going out because he saw Cinnamon run from the car
when he started the engine.  Hmmmmmm.  Well, the house was locked so it couldn't
have been just a passing stranger who let him in.  It had to be someone with
a key to the house.  Let's see.  Our landlady has a key but she has said
that she will never go into our house without calling us first.  She's always
done exactly that.  Well maybe she was driving by and saw Cinnamon outside.
She knows our cats are inside cats.  Maybe she stopped and let him in.  Called
Jane.  Nope she hasn't been by the house in months.  We tell her why we called.
She suggests maybe he came down one of the fireplaces.  Nope.  The chimneys
are too small and besides, the dampers were closed in both fireplaces. Hmmmm!
Well, who else has a key?  Jean!  Jean took care of our cats while we were
in Hawaii.  She still has the key.  She knows that Cinnamon was outside and
that I was worried about him.  She and Pat often have lunch together and
when she and Pat have a few brews they are pretty hilarious.  Maybe they
swung by a played a little joke on us.  (I know I'm stretching here but we
were going crazy by now.)  I asked Jean.  No, we didn't go near your house.
Oh by the way, that reminds me to give you back your key.

   Two or three days later Cinnamon did it again.  He has never done it since
and we never have figured it out even though many people have given many
suggestions.

tlh

154.2WILLIE::CANNOYFri Oct 04 1985 12:146
RE:.1

Teleportation. All cats can do it, they just have to want to get somewhere
a lot to let you catch them at it. ;-)

Tamzen
154.3PEN::KALLISMon Oct 21 1985 16:3821
Well, now, I'd almost go along with that except for my cat, Merlin.  Mine
have been indoor cats; but there are Forbidden Areas for them: the cellar
and the attic.

One day I found the cellar door open, and cats downstairs.  Chased them
upstairs and chided myself for leaving the door ajar.

It happened again when I was *certain* I'd closed the door properly.

Finally, after several more events, I caught Merlin as he was doing it.  He'd
managed to find out a way to jiggle the door so that he could (somehow) spring
the latch and open it.  He's my smartest cat.  He later used a similar technique
to open kitchen cabinets.

Worse, my *second*-smartest, who wasn't quite brilliant enough to figure out
how to get the doors open herself, was smart enough to observe how Merlin
did it, so now she can do it, too!

Fortunately, they are slide-bolts.

Steve Kallis, Jr.
154.4JON::MORONEYTue Oct 22 1985 02:399
.3 reminds me of what my sister's cat always did in our old house.  He would
show up mysteriously in the cellar fairly often.  When we found him there,
he had been there for a while and was quite glad to get out.  No one figured
out how he got there for the longest time.  My other sister and I got blamed
for it a lot.  We finally figured out how he got in - a window was broken
in such a way that it could open like a cat door and close again behind
him.

-Mike
154.5KEEPER::MALINGTue Oct 22 1985 12:1412
My parents have a house where the basement has been finished into several
rooms.  At night they keep the cats closed up in the laundry room.  One
morning when they went down to retreive the cats, one of them was not in the
laundry room, but had somhow managed to get into my father's shop.  Since the
shop and the laundry room were in different corners of the house and both
doors were kept closed we couldn't figure out how she did it.  She continued
to perform this trick until we caught her in the act.  The way she did it was
to get up between the ceiling of the bathroom (that was between the laundry
room and the shop) and the floor above and crawl between two floor joists to
get to the shop.

-Mary
154.6HITECH::BLOTCKYFri Nov 08 1985 22:049
When we first moved into our new house, we used to hear a banging sound.  We 
couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  We knew the cat was up and 
about, but never found anything  out of place.  It never continued for very 
long, and finally we assumed that it had to be the heating pipes in the wall.
Then one night I walked into to the bathroom, only to find our cat, Pepper,
lying on her back, playing "ping pong" with the vanity door.  It seem the 
spring loaded hinges made it a good toy!

Steve