Conference misery::feline_v1

    Schnitzel has been my alarm clock more than once!  When the alarm
    goes off, she lets me linger a bit before she makes an attempt to
    nudge me out of bed and into the shower. HOWEVER, if I fall back
    to sleep with no sign of waking for a bit, all H*ll breaks loose
    and she lets me know "Hey Mom, get up and go take your shower! You
    have to go to work so you can provide me the lifestyle to which
    I've become accustomed!".   
    
    P.
    

    Tabbatha is the good deed doer in our household.  Whenever my sister's
    cat comes over for a visit, Tabbatha becomes Referee (Or as we call
    her, "Mama kitty").  She is the youngest of the three kittens, but
    the biggest.  Silver and Samantha (My sister's cat) Do not get along
    at all.  Every time they see each other, they will hiss at each
    other and sometimes, Samantha goes after her.
    
    To give you an example, This is what happened the last time Samantha
    came over.  Samantha was in the hallway when Silver wanted to go
    by.  Tabbatha was out in the living room.  Silver wanted to go down
    the hallway.  Samantha immediately began to hiss at Silver and Silver
    backed away and hissed back at Samantha.  Tabbatha heard this and
    immediately got up and went into the hallway and planted herself
    between the two cats.  She folded her ears back and just GLARED
    at Samantha.  Then she looked at silver as if to say, "It's ok,
    I'm here, she won't hurt you."  She then nudged at Silver to go
    by, the whole time keeping an eye on Samantha.  She was making sure
    that no one hurt her friend.
    
    Holly, Tabbatha, and Sterling Silver
    
    

    I had a malfunction with my dryer a couple of weeks ago.
    
    I was upstairs, the dryer down in the cellar with the door 
    closed. Fiver came running into the back room where I was
    cleaning closets and gave an urgent MEOW and started to leave the
    room. I ignored him and meowed again and came over and put his
    claws in my jeanss leg and took off. Well I followed him and
    he went to the cellar door and started scratching and meowing.
    
    I opened the door and smelled something-wnet racing down the
    stairs and found a smell of insulation coming from the dryer
    plug. Unplugged it and it stoped. Turned out to be a loose
    connection in the wall which overheated and caused the dryer
    cord to start to go.
    
    He smelled it before the smoke alarm-in fact the alarm
    never went off.
    
    My kids have always been good on non-standard noises but
    this is the first time on non-standard smells!
    
    
    

    (RE .2)  Holly -
    
    Would you like to send Tabbatha out for hire as a referee between
    my cats? (See note 1103)
    
    They are still fighting, even after I had all the females spayed,
    only I'M the referee!
    
    Pam, on pins 'n needles!
    
    
    

    
    Our late cat P.C. did an interesting thing about 17 years ago.
    All during my pregnancy, P.C. would attack me even in the bath tub.
    The vet said I smelled wrong and to watch him closely after the
    baby arrived because he might attack the baby.  Well the opposite
    happened. P.C. wouldn't let any stranger near the baby and never
    harmed him. In fact, because Tom was born on the Fourth of July,
    he was featured in the local paper as a Holiday Baby when he was
    about 18 months old.  The photographer arrived, set up lights while
    P.C. waited from the corner of the room.  I brought the baby in
    the room and set him on the floor.  Tom was very serious and P.C.
    moved in closer.  When the Photographer started making Donald Duck
    noises to get Tom to smile, Tom fell over (he was sitting up) and
    started to look like he was going to cry.  P.C. quickly went over
    to Tom, licked his face which made Tom laugh then positioned himself
    halfway between the photographer and Tom and would not move. 
    
    We have the most delightful set of pictures all including the Baby
    and the Cat.  The photographer printed the picture he caught of
    P.C. 'kissing' the baby.  It was Great!
    
    Mary Ann

    Did you ever lock one of your cats in the closet...They happened
    to wander in there and you shut the door...?
    
    No need to fear, Schnapps is here!  She'll stare at the door until
    you open it...She'll also stare under tables when her toys are under
    there, but...
    

    Tequilla let me know that water was leaking through my ceiling,
    through my hand-knitted afghan (150+ hours of work) and onto my
    new couch!  You should have seen her, standing on the divider between
    the living room and dining room...Looking up, then down, up then
    down.  She caught things just in the nick of time!
    

Midnight told us of a prowler peeking in our window -- it was hot summer
night and it had just rained and a nice breeze finally came up -- so I opened 
the window and I was laying on the bed in my nightie reading -- all of sudden 
Midnight's eyes got as big as saucers and his hair rose on his back -- 
my husband was in the room and I said (very quietly) someone's looking in our 
window -- no, no my husband said, Fluffy (our other cat) is in the other window 
and he's not doing anything -- then Midnight started growling real low -- so 
my husband leaped up and just then the prowler slid on the bulkhead and went 
crashing -- needless to say, Midnight's a great watchcat!!

You can believe when Midnight starts staring at the window, we take heed.

    
    Sulkitt is my chief bird protector.  When I took care of my sister's
    kittens, she watched them like a hawk.  One step too near the cage
    that SULKITT's Parrot lives in, and WHAM, she'd bob them on the
    head.  I dunno if my African Grey parrot appreciated it, but Sulk
    did her job.
    
    She also does this for my smaller parrot when necessary.  The little
    conure is terrified of Basil, my big tabby (harmless but scarey-looking
    to a little bird!)  When I had to replace the hinges on the door
    to the little bird's room, I said, "Sulkitt, keep an eye on things."
    She sat on the bed in that room, and when Basil got near the door,
    she'd leap off the bed and WHAM! bop ol' Basil on the head.  Then
    she'd go back to the bed to "patrol".
    
    She is also my police kitty.  When she hears us scolding one of
    the other cats for their misdeeds, she chases after them and pops
    them on the head with one little siver paw.  I've been thinking
    of getting her some o' those jackboots that the Mass. State Troopers
    wear ;-)
    
    Rita
    

    Fred did a cute thing this morning.  I forgot to set the alarm last
    night and so, it didn't go off today.  I fancy that Fred realising
    the time and hearing no buzz, decided something was wrong and woke
    me up by licking my face.  I knew he could read the time.
    
    Or maybe he was just hungry and got impatient?!......

    We have a split-level house -- when you come in the front door, there's
    a short flight of steps up to the first floor and a short flight down
    to the basement.  The door to the basement is at the bottom of those
    steps.  Last Sunday I was in the living room watching TV, when Jasper
    started meowing a lot.  Now, he's pretty talkative normally, so at
    first I didn't pay much attention.  After a little while, though, it
    seemed to me that his voice sounded kind of faint, like he had gotten
    shut in a closet or something.  So I looked for him, and found him
    coming up the stairs from the basement.  Since he doesn't usually go
    down there, I thought it was kind of odd.  Then I remembered that my
    Significant Other and I had been down in the basement earlier, and it
    occurred to me that perhaps our other cat, Chayna, had gotten shut in
    there (the cats don't get in the basement often, so naturally they like
    to rush in there as soon as an opportunity presents itself).  I went
    down the stairs a little way to listen, and sure enough, I heard faint
    meowing from behind the basement door.  I opened it to set Chayna free.
    I couldn't hear her from the living room, so Jasper effectively rescued
    her by voicing his concern! 
							-- Nina