Thanks to Cynthianne 's www.bubblews.com/news/2180419-the-cat-that-wasn039t-there-but-was for suggesting this:
Years ago I took a job helping remodel an old farmhouse. During the second month I worked there, people started talking about having seen a cat somewhere around the place. They couldn't agree on anything about the cat. Big or small? Manx or Persian? Black or gray?
There was another nice, non-threatening, cat-loving woman on the crew. She and I called for a cat and set out food for a cat from time to time. Neither of us ever saw a cat, or any sign that one existed. I began to wonder if the guys were making up this cat story.
My car pool buddy on this job was the big, loud man who was using a bulldozer to reclaim the pond that had slowly turned into a marsh. When he started claiming to have seen "our mythical cat," I was pretty sure the guys were just kidding about this cat.
Then one day when he and I were there alone, he came up to me and almost whispered, "Look in the barn." (I wouldn't have been there alone with this guy if I hadn't felt sure that, if he ever said something like that, there would actually be something worth looking at in the barn.) I looked inside the barn, and there was the cat. She was half Manx and half Persian, the smoky shade of gray cat fanciers call blue, very long thick fluffy fur and a two-inch stub of a tail. Very pretty seen from in front, very comical from behind. She must have been five or six months old.
The Bulldozer Man put his arm around my shoulder as he called this cat. Sure enough, she came to us. Then he backed away and said, "See if she'll let you pet her," and sure enough she would. After seeing that I was Her Human's friend, that cat would come when I called. After a few days she'd even let me pick her up. But the other woman, who did not live in a Cat Sanctuary and whose husband would not have wanted her to get that close to another man, never saw the gray cat. She must have been someone's pet at some time in her short life, but she was wild by now.
A few weeks passed, and I finally met the gray cat's sister, who was black and had no tail at all. The black cat went to me and let me pet her, too, but after losing her fear of me she started nipping me when I wasn't even petting her. Not pet material. The Bulldozer Man had seen the black cat several times but never been allowed to touch her. Well, we had heard that Manx cats bond with only one human per cat, and although the gray cat was friendly to me she preferred him.
Anyway the house had been sold, and the buyers didn't want feral Manx cats, so we rescued the gray cat...and that was Graybelle, the Queen of the Cat Sanctuary for the next six months. She was a lovable cat, partly because she always seemed to remember which human she really liked first.
Moral: if you have a "ghost cat," "now you see it, now you don't," keep watching...it just might be your next pet!
Years ago I took a job helping remodel an old farmhouse. During the second month I worked there, people started talking about having seen a cat somewhere around the place. They couldn't agree on anything about the cat. Big or small? Manx or Persian? Black or gray?
There was another nice, non-threatening, cat-loving woman on the crew. She and I called for a cat and set out food for a cat from time to time. Neither of us ever saw a cat, or any sign that one existed. I began to wonder if the guys were making up this cat story.
My car pool buddy on this job was the big, loud man who was using a bulldozer to reclaim the pond that had slowly turned into a marsh. When he started claiming to have seen "our mythical cat," I was pretty sure the guys were just kidding about this cat.
Then one day when he and I were there alone, he came up to me and almost whispered, "Look in the barn." (I wouldn't have been there alone with this guy if I hadn't felt sure that, if he ever said something like that, there would actually be something worth looking at in the barn.) I looked inside the barn, and there was the cat. She was half Manx and half Persian, the smoky shade of gray cat fanciers call blue, very long thick fluffy fur and a two-inch stub of a tail. Very pretty seen from in front, very comical from behind. She must have been five or six months old.
The Bulldozer Man put his arm around my shoulder as he called this cat. Sure enough, she came to us. Then he backed away and said, "See if she'll let you pet her," and sure enough she would. After seeing that I was Her Human's friend, that cat would come when I called. After a few days she'd even let me pick her up. But the other woman, who did not live in a Cat Sanctuary and whose husband would not have wanted her to get that close to another man, never saw the gray cat. She must have been someone's pet at some time in her short life, but she was wild by now.
A few weeks passed, and I finally met the gray cat's sister, who was black and had no tail at all. The black cat went to me and let me pet her, too, but after losing her fear of me she started nipping me when I wasn't even petting her. Not pet material. The Bulldozer Man had seen the black cat several times but never been allowed to touch her. Well, we had heard that Manx cats bond with only one human per cat, and although the gray cat was friendly to me she preferred him.
Anyway the house had been sold, and the buyers didn't want feral Manx cats, so we rescued the gray cat...and that was Graybelle, the Queen of the Cat Sanctuary for the next six months. She was a lovable cat, partly because she always seemed to remember which human she really liked first.
Moral: if you have a "ghost cat," "now you see it, now you don't," keep watching...it just might be your next pet!
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