Conference misery::feline_v1

    I have a thick cord from an old bathrobe and my 1 year old cat does
    this.  After we've finished playing with the rope, she'll take one
    end and start to walk away.  Then her eye will catch the movement
    of the other end of the rope and she'll run back to chase it.  Since
    it isn't moving when she gets there, she'll start all over again.
    
    Yes, it looks weird but there's nothing wrong.  Cats just use their
    imagination when nobody is there to play with them.
    
    Could also be that your cat thinks she's cought some prey and thus
    the shaking of her head.
    
    
    

    In reply to .1
    
    This reminds me of tail chasing.  The largest and smartest of my
    cats is a confirmed tail-chaser, and not just on the ground.  She
    loves to chase her tail around the seat of a wooden kitchen chair!
    

    Cats can dream, have imaginations, and will play.  .0's cat is
    apparently play-acting about some "game" she's "killed."  Once,
    when I gave Morgan, Nianinne, and Angelica some bits of raw chicken
    many years ago, all of them crouched over their food and growled,
    apparently pretending they's each "killed" their pieces.
    
    Big old Morgan, an ordinarily very dignified and humungous cat,
    would periodically chase his tail, too.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Weird, oh yeah.  The first time this happened I was crazy with worry.
    I came home from work and no Corkie at the door to meet me.  As
    this was a regular occurrance, I got worried.  I called and called
    and still no Corkie.  I looked under the bed, in the closets, and
    still no Corkie.  By this time I was frantic, I mean, how many places
    can a cat hide in a one bedroom apartment.  I was sure by this time
    that the apartment people had accidently let her out.  I was getting
    ready to go out and look and went to the bathroom first.  As I "sat
    down" this little head popped up from the sink in the bathroom and
    greeted me.  I guess she likes the coolness of the marble in the
    sink but when she's in there you can't see her unless you're right
    on top of her.  She scrunches down just and far as she can and curls
    up in the sink and goes to sleep.  Yes, they're all pretty weird.
    
    Pat

    Sulkitt steals socks, shirts, etc., from the laundry.  She carries
    them into the living room and drops them on the floor.  Carrying
    them is accompanied by meowing, loudness in proportion to size of
    the article. (We thought she was seriously injured once, she was
    crying so loud...turns out, she was carrying a long fuzzy bathrobe,
    about six times her size.)
    
    Sonya, a Burmese cross that I once lived with, ate cat crunchies
    by tossing them into the air, chasing, and pouncing on them.  Wouldn't
    eat 'em any other way.  Ooooh, that wild cat chow, what a fearless
    hunter cat :-)
    
    Rita
    

    When Sy was about 1 year old he found a box of rolled up socks.
    I would come home and find socks in the front room.  Took about
    a week to figure out where they were coming from, (I forgot all
    about the box), he had a grand time carring them around the apt.
    

    Maggie [my little orange 12-year-old] curls up in the kitchen sink
    in the winter time.  It's stainless steel and right under a south-
    facing window.  nice and toasty on those cold afternoons.  It does
    make an odd vibrating metallic noise though -- she works at purring
    until she gets the resonance 'just right' and settles in for a spell.
    
    Annie

        Yes cats are very cute carrying things around, but be very watchful
    when the things are very small, thin, or otherwise swallowable.
    I know of one cat that nearly died after pulling around kneehigh
    stockings and then eating one. After  many xrays and surgery and
    a month of recovery the cat is finally well. Another went through
    the same process with tape recorder tape.

    Christmas tree tinsel is especially inviting so seriously consider not
    using it at all!
    
    -	Margie

    I know if I gave Honey that type of string, he'd eat it!  He'll
    eat any kind of long, thin thing that can be chomped on.  And, Margie,
    about tape recorder tape...I don't know how he managed to get to
    it, but I found him merrily chewing away at a cassette tape one
    morning (must not have liked the music!).  Fortunately, I'm getting
    quite expert at getting things out of his mouth and throat before
    they do any damage.
    
    Both my boys love to have toys tossed in the air for them to bat
    down and then "kill".  Little tiny Chauncey will snag his catnip
    mouse mid-air and then put it in his mouth and shake it like crazy.
    Then he brings it back to me, drops it on my lap for me to throw
    it again.  So, is your cat weird??  Yup...but isn't it nice to know
    all of ours are, too???
    
    Mary
        

    My kitty goes for the scare approach.  As I am walking aroun the
    apartment, Dazdee will get behind a door, and when I walk into 
    the room, he will jump way off the ground and *scare* me. (Boo!!!!)
    
    I think thats more then weird, he's just plain crazy!
    

    
    
     re .5
    
    	My cat does this too - her dry food is on the clothes hamper,
    which is about 2 1/2 feet off the floor. She'll stand on her hind
    legs and scoop the food out with a front paw, and chase it around
    for a few minutes. She doesn't do it too much anymore, though, 
    because as soon as the dog hears the first piece hit the floor,
    she's right there, looking for a free meal...I think more food ends
    up under the hamper than in the cat's stomach...   :-)

    A-huh! Sure!  Your cats chase their tails, but when they catch 
    them..............
    
                       do they bite down so hard that they cry out,
    and then get this really wild look on their faces (eyes dilated,
    ears back, whiskers full forward) and look around like someone just
    attacked them?
    
    Hotrail does this! Sometimes she even runs her head into the
    wall or bathtub, when she gets turning real fast.
    
    Her are a really smart cat!
                                                     
    Mary-Lynn

    re .0
    
    Is your cat weird? Of course it is!!! That's why we like cats!!!
    
    Aja has a most 'affectionate' way of greeting me. As soon as I walk
    in the door, she ATTACKS!!! Her ears are forward (aggressive), fur
    standing straight up, tail bushed out and claws a-slashing!!!
    
    Coming home reminds me of the detective (Clouseau?) who's house
    keeper attacks him when he arrives.
    
    Aja will also chase a flashlight beam right into a wall....
    
    Edd

        O.K. You think your cat is wierd...we gave my siamise cat a
    shoelace which she also carries around in her mouth and to ammuse
    herself will go into the bathroom and wrap it around the john so
    the long end will follow and then she will chase it in circles!!
    
        WEIRD!!!!

    My cat is weird too!!!  Rascal thinks she is a dog.  She fetches
    and sits on command.  I'm still working on the paw though!
    
    Elaine.

    I GUESS THIS ISN'T REALLY THAT WEIRD, BUT, I HAVE A 4 MONTH OLD
    KITTEN WHO CARRIES AROUND A TEDDY BEAR IN HER MOUTH -- IT'S SO CUTE
    !!  WELL, I GUESS ALL BABIES HAVE TO HAVE THEIR TEDDY BEARS.

    I used to think that my cat was one of a kind until I started
    reading this file.  I seems that I'm not alone.  My cat (her
    name is Obi & she is 4 years old).  Obi eats with her paws all the
    time, as a previous not stated I think there is more food on the
    floor that in here tummy.  I don't feed here canned food due to 
    the fact that I would be cleaning it off the walls. 
    She will also fetch a yarn ball or anything else you throw for 
    her and she will bring it back for you to throw again.  
    She makes the strangest noises when she returns the toy.  
    Unfortunately 3:30 in the A.M. is not a good time for
    fetch. I can't add much on the tail chasing because she is
    bob tailed, but she does like to change and play with anything
    resembling a string.  Her yarn ball had a string on it and
    she would drag the ball around by the string until, the string
    got tangled around here paw so no more string.
    
    I had better stop before this turns into a book.
    
    

    I'll just add  that Merlin sometimes talks in his sleep.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The way I look at it, my cats and I are are purfectly normal; it
    is the rest of the world that is weird!
    
    Deb
    

    RE:698.18
    
    Steve, In your title  -< more on the black Manx stubtail...>-
    
    Does this mean that my Obi is a Manx?
    
    If so can someone clarify what a Manx is?
    
    Kim
    

    Well, since we're on the subject of wierdness anyway, do any of your
    cats do the "treadmill?"  When Sebastion is feeling silly (something
    he'd never admit to by the way), he gets a wild look in his eyes and
    jumps into the bathtub.  (he LOVES it in there - especially if the
    shower curtain is closed because he can peek out from behind it with
    very WIDE eyes ready to POUNCE when someone walks in...).  By far, his
    favorite thing to do while in there is to "walk" his front paws like
    he's scratching away at something furiously, and then he goes PLOP! and
    thumps down on his side, panting, with that wild and crazy look on his
    face.  He does this over and over again.  We call it the treadmill.
    Claude, the little cat, thinks he's funny, and jumps on top of him for a
    bit of wrestling.  We hear all this thumping and scraping coming from
    the bathtub, and when we walk in, they are both sitting there looking
    mischeiviously out over the side.  Boy, are they having fun!  I've
    never known a cat to be so fascinated by the smooth sensation of the
    bathtub.  He's another sink-sitter by the way, but he's quite a large
    cat, and doesn't fit like he used to.  Now he kind of forms a big gray
    and white mound in the sink, all scrunched up.  He also likes to sit and
    watch us take baths, but he just thinks it's so WEIRD that we fill it
    with water (and sometimes bubbles) before climbing in.  If cats had a
    NOTES file on humans, that would be his entry.
    
    If you think your cat is weird, do you ever imagine what they think
    of YOU????  Like talking to yourself while holding this THING up to
    your ear attached to a curly string that's fun to chew on...
    
    think about it...
    
    amy. 
              

    re.: .20
    
    The Manx is a breed of tailless cat from the Isle of Man.  Taillessness
    is a genetic condition which is not conducive to good health. As
    a matter of fact if a cat is a homozygote - carrying the tailless
    gene on both genes (one from each parent) it will die before birth.
    All Manx are heterozygotes and in a litter the kittens can range
    from having complete tails to having a dimple where the tail would
    normally be and anything in between. A show quality Manx is tailless.
    Stumptails are usually sold as pets.  Some lines of Manx are prone
    to spina bifida, which is a genetic birth defect in which the spinal
    column does not close.  It is a hard breed to work with because
    kitten loss is high.  I don't think I could deal with that every
    time a litter were due.

    Re .20:
    
    II don't know if Obi is a Manx; Merlin surely is.  If you feel his
    tail [something he'll let _me_ do], it's slightly helical -- corkscrew
    shaped.  He has some of the usual Manx traits (opening cabinet doors
    -- and other doors he can get his paws on -- and going off places
    to moan when he feels hurt).  He's highly uintelligent, and ...
    well, I could go on about him, but this is the "weird" note, no?
    So what else...?  
    
    Well, he's the cleverest "hider" I've ever known.  Who would think
    of looking for a cat _hiding_ on the top of a refrigerator???
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

  	Forgot to mention, Sy actual will answer the telephone when
    	I don't get to it fast enough.  We have races to see who will
    	get to the phone first.  He either pushes it with his nose or
    	grabs the coil in his teeth and jerks it right off, then he
    	will meow.   WEIRD..
    

    RE: .24
    
    My late cat Viper (R.I.P) used to answer the phone, too. And he
    would carry on a real conversation, too. Whomever was on the other
    end of the phone would say something and he'd meow back. I think
    he learned the trick by emulating my mother. She lives on the phone.
    
    Deb

    I have one cat that does the TREADMILL, only he prefers the
    smoothness of sheets.  He always does it on the sheets, 
    pillows on the bed, and on my rocking chair, which is covered
    with a smooth velvet-like upholstery.  Oh yes, I just remem-
    bered, I do have another cat who does the TREADMILL!  He
    does it in the bathroom sink occasionally.
    
    Donna

    
    
    	I have a 4 inch thick down comforter on my bed, and one of 
    Rosie's favorite games is to dive under the edge of the comforter,
    and tunnel around underneath it until she finds a spot she likes,
    and then she'll go to sleep. Or, she'll turn around and stick her
    head part way out, just so you can see her eyes, and watch you from
    there. It looks like a big mole running around under the comforter.
    

	 Becky is  also a 'bed mole' kitty. Any time something frightens
     her,  like  seing a male face, you know exactly where she is. Under
     the  covers.  The  one  time  the fire alarm went off, she burrowed
     under  the  pillows. She also burrows under the edges of carpets. I
     have  a  picture  of  her  underneath  a folded comforter which was
     underneath  2 folded afghans which were under her brother Josh. All
     you see is her head.

	 Becky also  chases  her  tail  around  the post of the cat tree
     while  lying  on  her  side.  Quite  a  trick since one side of the
     platform is only 1.5 inches wide.  She hasn't fallen off yet.

	 Josh *insists*  on  playing  'spot'  every  morning  (chase the
     reflection off my watch crystal as I aim it all over the walls). He
     also  plays  fetch.  Becky  will also fetch her toy mouse or a foam
     ball.  

    My oldest Aby, Puppie, stalks and kills (yes I mean stone dead!)
    a throw rug several times a day.
    
    Marion
    

    
    
    My oldest Dazdee will not drink out of his bowl.  No matter how
    much fresh water I give him (I've tried ice cubes for coolness
    and everything), he will still only drink out of the faucet.
    
    However, if I put milk in his bowl.........
    
    Katie

    My cat, Tazmanian Devil, has some strange habits.  One of them is
    to get underneath a bed, lie on her back, and pull herself across
    the length of the bed by grabbing onto the underneath of the mattress
    and pulling herself along.  She is also a 'bed mole', and loves
    to play 'hide & seek'.  At the top of our stairs there is a bedroom
    on the left, I'll chase her up the stairs and she'll run in the
    room and hide under the bed.  I'll wait about 1/2 way up the stairs
    and soon she'll peek her head around the corner - sometimes we'll both
    scare each other and she'll meow and run and hide again.  
    
    She also likes to go in open drawers, and in the bathroom, there are two
    drawers stacked on top of each other.  If the top one is open, she'll
    jump in it, knock over everything inside while she climbs over the
    back of the drawer into the bottom one, then she'll meow for you
    to open the bottom drawer so she can jump out.  I could go on and
    on about her, but I think you get the idea.

    Re .23
    
    Steve, Obi's tail (what there is of it) is about 1 inch long with
    a little hook on the end (which was a problem when she was a kitten).
    Her father was a stubtail (he came from Vermont).  Some of her litter
    had complete tails, some had partial tails and Obi was the only
    stubtail.  She does some strange things sometimes. (opening cabinet
    doors, which I had to put barrel bolts on all of them to keep her
    out. drawers are facinating to her.
    
    Re. .27
    
    My cat is also a mole she helps me make the bed by running underneath
    everything.  She doesn't mind that I make the bed up around her.
    
    Re. .30
    
    Obi also does not like to drink water from her bowl.  She has her
    own cup in the bathroom.  When she wants more or fresh water she
    pushed the cup into the sink the let you know the she wants a 
    refill.
    
    
    Kim
    

    Re .32:
    
    Yes, she sounds quite Manxy.  Opening doors seems to be something
    of a Manx trait.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    JFCL likes to "visit" the shoes on the floor of the bedroom closet.
    it has sliding doors, and almost every night, there is a big commotion
    as The Fickle eventually manages to get enough of a grip on the
    end of the door to pull it open (she's a big, strong, kitty) and
    go curl up on her beloved shoes!  (Nebula has no interest in shoes.)
    
    She also likes to be in the bathroom in the morning when I take
    a shower.  if I don't seem to be heading that way early enough to
    suit her, she will keep trying to lead me to the shower!  And if
    I happen to head off to take the my shower when she isn't looking,
    as soon as she discovers that I got away, she makes a big racket
    at the bathroom door until I let her in!  We call this "Splashing
    Cat" behavior, though, actually, as soon as I turn on the water,
    or even flush the toilet, she wants OUT - she has been bathed in
    the shower a few times (such as when she turned out to be allergic
    to a new flea collar) and is not at all interested in getting involved
    with the water herself, but she sure wants ME to get in the shower!
    
    Cats are wierd, but, then, so am I!

    Another Manx trait.............. they lie on their stomachs with
    their hind legs straight out behind them (very similar to a Cocker
    Spaniel, or some terrier breed dogs).  My mothers Manx also sits
    with her bottom flat on the floor, her from legs at her sides and
    her hind legs out in front.  This is her favorite position for watching
    TV at night.

    RE: -1
    
    I don't think that this is just a Max trait; my Pip does it all
    the time and with that plume of her's she is no manx. She likes
    to lie down like this while she is watching TV.
    
    Deb
     

    

    My generic cat has a strange habit.  I have this wood stove.  Under
    it, I have a tile board.  Some of the mortar between the tiles has
    become loose.  The cat digs out the pieces and takes them to the
    bathtub.  The are great toys in the tub as they fly around.  I don't
    find this amusing when I stumble out of bed into the shower and
    step on the pieces of mortar.  I think the cat waits until I clean
    the tub then runs to the stove and gets more toys.
    
    Einstein has the strangest habit of any of my cats.  He hears my
    car up the street and chases it home.  I live on a quiet street
    and due to it being narrow and doing a u-turn in front of the house,
    drive up the street at about 12 miles an hours.  Einstein only chases
    my car and he keeps some distance so I am not worried about hitting
    him, but it is the most ridiculous looking thing I've ever seen.
    
    
    Tigger is not weird, just moody.
    

    Pokey, our Calico-tiger cat, and Gumby Black & White part tiger
    cat, love to play in the bathtub or just lie in it.  Anytime we
    turn on the water they jump in, and when the water starts to get
    too high, they jump out.  They like to drink it, too.  One time
    my husband was filling up the tub.  When it got about 3/4 full he
    shut the water off.  Pokey, who was standing on the side watching,
    jumped, legs out-stretched and landed PLOP in the water!  Boy, was
    she surprised to find that it was WET!  Wet cats look so funny!
    And she has a lot of fur.  
    
    They also like to climb the door frames.  First Pokey started doing
    this.  She'd get a head start then jump and climb as high as she
    could.  Gumby got jealous and taught herself how to do it also,
    so now they chase each other up the walls!
    
    Pokey is also a "bed mole".  She likes to crawl under the blankets
    and roam around while on top Gumby swats her and claws her.  I wonder
    if she knows her sister is under there?

    Maybe somebody out there can help explain my cat Tasha's strange
    behavior.  This morning while shaving, Tasha was in her usual place
    sitting by the sink waiting for me to go to the kitchen to feed
    her.  Suddenly, she rose up on her hind paws, put her front paws
    on my chest, and licked the tip of my nose.  She then sat back down
    and acted like nothing had happened.
    
    Is this an insult or a compliment in Cat, or was she just getting
    tired of waiting?
    
    dennis
         

    Mielikki sometimes does this.  It's totally out of the blue and
    has no pattern that I can tell.  Sometimes it's when I'm putting
    my mascara on, causing a nice blob on my face.
    
    I figure maybe it's that she suddenly realized how much she loves
    me and wants to express it, but soon forgets...
      

    
    Re: .39
    
    She OBVIOUSLY was sitting there thinking what a wonderful human
    you are, and how lucky she is to own you, and how cute the silly
    things that you INSIST on doing before feeding her are, and decided
    to kiss you. 
    
    But then she realized that she's supposed to be coy and demure and
    NEVER be so openly affectionate, so she figured if she pretended she
    didn't do it you'd realize you had imagined the entire incident.
    
    That's all.
    
    amy.

    
    
    I just had to share this "silliness" experience I had last evening when
    I got home from work.  This is an addendum to .21.  Sebastion, the one
    who likes to play in the tub, was in a wild and crazy mood when I
    walked in the door. He has a lot of pent-up energy since the weather is
    getting colder and the days shorter, so they don't spend as much time
    outside.  Well, I decided to help him expend some energy so we started
    to play chase/hide and seek.  (His favorite game).  I run down the hall
    into one of the darkened bedrooms and he either chases me, or runs into
    another bedroom and waits to ambush me.  It's lots of fun, because we
    scare each other constantly. He loves to jump out at me and slap my
    legs with his paws, and then dance around as if to say, "I got you, I
    got you!!"  Well, the game ended rather abruptly after he tagged me and
    I turned around, so he turned to run and hide in his favorite place...
    The BATHTUB! However, after I took a bath last night, the phone rang
    and I had forgotten to empty the tub...  OOOOPS.  I saw him run into
    the bathroom and heard a big  -SPLOOSH! SCRAMBLE! SPLISHY! and he went
    ZOOM out of the bathroom!  I almost couldn't breathe I was laughing so
    hard.  Then I felt guilty for laughing, so I went to find him (under
    the kitchen table) to mend his ruffled ego, and he sat there and glared
    at me.  Poor Sabe.  Claude just sat in the corner and snickered into
    her paws, trying to look serious.  It may be a while before he goes
    tearing into the bathtub again before first stopping to check the water
    level! 
    
    Amy. 
          

    Boy, it's a good thing I work third shift and was by myself when
    I read this, Amy.  If anybody had been here they would have come
    to see what was the matter.  I had to pick myself up off the floor
    to reply to this.  Thanks so much for sharing this, it made my night
    much better.  
    
    Bernice
    

    One of our cats, Moses, will greet me by jumping into my lap
    and ever so gently bite my nose (sometimes my chin)!  He'll
    only do it once a day (usually when I come home from work).
    
    Our cat April cleans ears...not only kitty ears, but human
    ears too (it tickles)!  She purrs all the while. 
    
    Moses also uses his paw to scoop dry food into the water dish
    and wet food into his mouth.  I'm not kidding!
    
    Polly (our Polydactyl cat) drags socks around the house (she hasn't
    tried anything bigger yet).
    
    Abby will stand on her hind legs at the door when she wants to go
    out, arch backward, beckon towards the door and meow for you to
    let her out.
    
    They always seem to come up with new behaviors to make us marvel.
    (We're thinking of enrolling them in college...)
    
    Diane
    

    
    RE: .12
    	
    	That is sooooo funny, Mary Lynn!  I was hysterical!!  I couldn't
    help but picture the cat's face!  I love when my cat goes nuts over
    nothing and makes the funniest faces.  I have laugh out loud!  It
    just seems to make her do more.
    
    
    RE:  .44
    
    	I know what you mean, she licks in my ears as well.  And if
    I give in and scratch in her ears (Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, does she LOVE
    that!), she'll lick my finger clean (which I do appreciate!).
    
    
    My Siamese is a NUT!  When I first got her (she was about 1 1/2
    years old) she was immediately the owner of my bathrobe tie.  Even
    when I was wearing it, she would try to pull it off.  Then I got
    a long (about 3 feet) fiberglass pole and notched one end.  I then
    took some string and knotted the end several times.  This is now
    her toy (I've had her about 4 1/2 years now).  I replace the string
    every once in a while because it seems to shorten as time goes by
    - it's the wierdest thing!  She will drag that thing to me whenever
    she wants to play.  You can hear her coming because the stick part
    inevitably hits something or gets caught, so she has to pull hard.
    She will then drop it at my feet and sit there, staring at me, waiting
    for me to pick it up and play with her.  Sometimes she will play
    with it on her own, but I think that is just to give the idea!
    
    Also, and this is both wierd and disgusting, she will pull out of
    her litterbox....(need I give details!!) and play with it, batting
    it around the floor!
                     
    She is crazy............and I love her!!!!
    
    Deborah