# Dead cat story



## jusjim (Jun 30, 2009)

Would you recognize your cat if you found it dead? This woman buried 'her' cat, and then it turned up looking for breakfast.

Stunned family who thought their cat Norman had risen from the dead realise they had buried WRONG pet | Mail Online


----------



## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

Poor Norman lost his mouse 

This article reads like a "why you should keep your pet indoors" story.


----------



## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

It's nice her cat came back, I think it reads more like a "neuter your cat!!" story. They say he's a tom that wonders about, which sounds like he isn't fixed, meaning most of these issues could be avoided if he wasn't off scrapping.

Actually, if you look at the comments, the top one is "cats should not be outside..........keep them in........." ... it has almost 100 thumbs down. :lol: The way their opinion is like night and day with USA always amuses me.


----------



## 3gatos (Nov 28, 2012)

I would notice all 3 of my cats. Although there are a few long hair orange tabbies that I have almost hit running across the street and for a second I thought they were my orange kitten, Kricket (he likes to try to escape). Then I run into the apartment and he's staring back at me like, "crazy lady, give me mah foods!" and I breathe a sigh of relief.


----------



## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

A similiar thing happened to a friend of mine. Here is her account she sent me some time ago:

_"The cat had been missing for a couple of weeks. During my inquiries around the neighborhood, someone told me about a carcass of a cat that was at the edge of the woods across from the elementary school. The head was missing but it had calico markings like my cat. Through all the tears, I went home to get a bag to bring her home and buried her in a flower garden in the back yard. 4 months later when my ex-husband and I were walking around dusk, at the exact spot I had found the body, there sat my cat. She had lost half her body weight but the vet said she was in amazingly good condition. She lived another 4 years after that and I had to put her to sleep when she was 18. A beautiful cat but she never liked the house there at Edinburgh. She had always been an outdoor cat but after I moved there she wanted to be in the house all the time. Maybe just feeling vulnerable because of her age."

_


----------



## oceanmist (Feb 12, 2011)

Luckily Casie and Cherry are both colored in a way that I could easily distinguish them. 

Honestly, I have no idea how people tell cats apart when they look the same. Especially black cats. There were two at the shelter and unless they were both together, I couldn't tell which was which. I couldn't compare sizes without them being next to each other.


----------



## cat face (Apr 4, 2013)

Carmel said:


> Actually, if you look at the comments, the top one is "cats should not be outside..........keep them in........." ... it has almost 100 thumbs down. :lol: The way *their opinion is like night and day with USA* always amuses me.


You are soooo right there! After moving to the UK, about a year later, the day we moved into our house, I declared that we were getting a cat. He was a dog person and was less then thrilled but finally agreed. I was passionate. 

Well let me tell you the process of getting a cat from the rescue WOW, is all I could say.

First we had to visit the cats and choose. Fair enough but now is where the "fun" started.
I had to arrange for a "home visit". A what?! Yes, a home visit, to see if my dwelling was suitable for a cat I'm trying to rescue.
I also had to show proof of address (electric bill or similar) something that linked me and the address.

The day came for my visit. 
I was asked all kinds of questions. Then she noticed the street out front was a little busy. 
I said that I would keep the cat inside. 
WRONG answer 
In the UK it is ALMOST considered animal cruelty to keep a cat strictly indoors unless it has feline HIV. I had no idea! So, I stammered and said I meant at night! lol

Then she wanted to check my back garden to see if it was fenced and clear of nasties that could hurt kitties. 
I thought, fenced? Cats climb, right? 

I had no cat flap but had to promise to get one and since I had cats before and my garden was fenced she felt like I might be alright as a candidate to rescue a cat. Whew!!

She did tell me that I could keep the letter of approval and as long as I didn't move it was good for life.

I got it laminated.

They are very thorough about you getting a vet and having them neutered. 
There WAS suppose to be a follow up visit to see how my rescued cat was "adjusting", but I never did get a call for that. 
I did get one for the neutering though.

My husband and I made a joke about the whole thing. We had to, we were stunned by it all! lol
We STILL joke about it, actually. Anytime B.B. looks disgruntled, we always say she'll be calling her case worker. LOL

Growing up and as an adult I had cats that were strictly indoor and those that were indoor/outdoor. (we just called them "house broke")
It didn't matter to me, actually not having to worry about scooping litter for years was lovely. 

Now, with the kittens, its back to scoop duty (they can't quite make it all night without a wee break) LOL

P.S. ..and my husband is a converted kitty slave! He loves them.  He just never had or knew anyone who had cats before. Now he's their biggest fan! lol


----------



## Mitts & Tess (Sep 4, 2004)

Wow Cat Face! What an ordeal! I go with my intuition when adopting out my fosters. Ive been known to become an adoption Nazi when Im unsure.

Ive had black cat fosters only I could tell apart! But when your around them, its easy!


----------



## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

Wow, Cat Face. Sounds like a Nazi cat police person got ahold of you! That would intimidate me at first, then I'd just mad and throw her out and look for a stray.  sheesh!

I've been to area shelters where they almost BEGGED you to take the cats - no charge- and others that do the home visit, bank account balance check, credit score, etc. (just kidding about the last two). It does seem intrusive, though but I understand why they do it. I almost exclusively adopt from the Animal Control here now. They know me and I take in the old or otherwise unadoptable kitties so they like when I walk in.


----------



## cat face (Apr 4, 2013)

Marcia said:


> Wow, Cat Face.* Sounds like a Nazi cat police person got ahold of you!* That would intimidate me at first, then I'd just mad and throw her out and look for a stray. sheesh!
> 
> I've been to area shelters where they almost BEGGED you to take the cats - no charge- and others that do the home visit, bank account balance check, credit score, etc. (just kidding about the last two). It does seem intrusive, though but I understand why they do it. I almost exclusively adopt from the Animal Control here now. They know me and I take in the old or otherwise unadoptable kitties so they like when I walk in.


I know, right?! 
But that is standard procedure around here. One of those "cultural differences" I had to get use to :wiggle


----------



## CJinCA (Dec 5, 2011)

I suppose I could understand an all black cat, or all ginger, being mistaken. My Lickorish has a tiny cluster of white hairs over her left clavicle that I would look for to make sure its her. We keep ours indoors here (and they are very happy and show no signs of wanting to go out), so I hope it will never come to this. 

to Cat Face: the rescue group we got ours from came to the house and made some suggestions (like close the window more in case they freak out and try to escape when they are brought in), mostly for the safety of the kitties, but not as much as yours seems to have made, but then we have no garden that they could go out in and be safe, and we live on a busy street, so no going outdoors for our girls! We do have a garden, but not safe for kitties.

But on this topic of mistaken dead cats, let me tell a dog story:

I got my Lhasa Aphso, Victor, while I was in high school from a favorite teacher who couldn't keep him for some reason. He was 1 year old at the time. All was well, then I went off to college and left him with my parents (who live in a very rural area with no leash laws). He got attacked by a neighbor's doberman that got out, and had stitches from his nose to his tail. He recovered from that pretty well. Then one morning I got a call from my Mom. She was completely distraught, she was backing her car out to go somewhere and felt a bump. She got out to look, and the back tire was on Victor's neck. She had killed Victor! So she asked some neighbor boys to dig a hole in the back yard to bury him.... (I got this call later) They dug the hole, went to pick up the body to put him in it.....and he jumped up and ran across the street! He wasn't dead! She took him to the vet, who couldn't find any major injuries, just said he may have been in shock and he'd be sore for awhile. 

Anyway, he recovered from that, only to disappear some years later. We found his collar and tags on the street half a block from my parents' house. Put up posters, etc. Someone called and said they saw him dead on the highway, went to look a the location, but didn't find anything. Just gave him up for dead. Then some years after that, my Mom went to babysit for a friend who had just moved to a new neighborhood, and as she navigated this new neighborhood, she saw Victor there in a fenced yard, playing with a little girl (he was quite old by then). She stopped the car, got out and called him, and he came to her. The little girl asked 'Is this your dog?' and my Mom said, 'Yes he is'. The little girl burst into tears, and then her Mom came out of the house. Victor looked happy and well looked after, and had recently been groomed, so Mom let them keep him. He passed to the Rainbow Bridge not too long after that. I just wonder if he's there waiting for me, my Mom, or that little girl.

So I like to say the Victor was like a cat, he had 9 lives!


----------



## Blakeney Green (Jan 15, 2013)

Not to be morbid, but when a cat is killed by a car or another animal, there may not be a lot left to make the identification with. 

All of our cats have distinguishing features, but when the corpse is very mangled, sometimes all there is to go on are things like size and colour.


----------



## Venusworld21 (Oct 23, 2012)

One of the rescues I work with adopted a cat out to a lady. She already had 2 and this gray tabby was her third. She came home one night a few days later to find the gray tabby standing on her porch. She quickly persuaded him to come back inside while frantically trying to figure out how he'd got out.

Then she turns around and realizes there are FOUR cats in her house....a few days after she adopted this cat, a stray looking JUST like it turns up on her front porch. How bizzare. She ended up bringing the stray to the no-kill shelter and we took him in and adopted him out.


----------



## oceanmist (Feb 12, 2011)

Venusworld21 said:


> One of the rescues I work with adopted a cat out to a lady. She already had 2 and this gray tabby was her third. She came home one night a few days later to find the gray tabby standing on her porch. She quickly persuaded him to come back inside while frantically trying to figure out how he'd got out.
> 
> Then she turns around and realizes there are FOUR cats in her house....a few days after she adopted this cat, a stray looking JUST like it turns up on her front porch. How bizzare. She ended up bringing the stray to the no-kill shelter and we took him in and adopted him out.



My dad has almost let in strays before thinking they were Casie. lol At one point there was a tabby almost identical to my neighbor's cat hanging around here. Our neighbor went up to it one day then realized it wasn't their cat when it hissed at her.


----------



## Manue (Jan 3, 2013)

Blakeney Green said:


> Not to be morbid, but when a cat is killed by a car or another animal, there may not be a lot left to make the identification with. (


I didn't dare to say it but that's what I thought.

I know that the outdoor/indoor question is a sensitive topic that has been discussed at length and that should be avoided around here, but I just wanted to say that I feel guilty every day about keeping my cat indoors. I rationalise it to myself because she's not afraid of humans (she once walked right into in my neighbour's apartment, all like 'what's the menu here?'), And if she managed to escape the very high fence of the backyard there would be quite a bit of traffic. Also my boyfriend says we're too busy to handle my freakout if she were to not come home at some point...
I do take her out on the balcony with a harness. I might take her to the park eventually.


----------



## Blakeney Green (Jan 15, 2013)

Venusworld21 said:


> One of the rescues I work with adopted a cat out to a lady. She already had 2 and this gray tabby was her third. She came home one night a few days later to find the gray tabby standing on her porch. She quickly persuaded him to come back inside while frantically trying to figure out how he'd got out.
> 
> Then she turns around and realizes there are FOUR cats in her house....a few days after she adopted this cat, a stray looking JUST like it turns up on her front porch. How bizzare. She ended up bringing the stray to the no-kill shelter and we took him in and adopted him out.


My neighbours at my last apartment had a cat that looked extremely similar to Zephyr, and they even put the same type of collar on their cat that Zephyr had at the time. I didn't realize that, so when I saw their cat outside one day on my way home from work, I chased it down the street, through their yard, and to a hole in their fence thinking it was my cat. The owners watched me do this with great confusion.

I figured I'd lost him, so I sighed and went home to get some treats to try to lure him. When I got in my apartment, Zephyr was there waiting.

For several years after, some of the people in the neighbourhood would scoop up their cats when I walked by, thinking I was some sort of cat stealing maniac. Not even kidding.


----------



## cat owner again (Dec 14, 2012)

The cat across the street looks almost identical to my black and white cat. It might be hard to tell the difference with injury. As to keeping cats in or out, if I had a kitten I would keep it inside but I adopted two cats living on the street. One was a an abandoned house cat at one time and she likes it inside. She does goes out but hangs around and is in most of the time. Her son born outside loves it out there. Even in the rain he will stay on a chair under my patio. He runs outside first thing after eating in the morning. He catches all sorts of lizards and mice and gophers and bugs. He thrives outside but the door is open and he can come in any time he wants. He says hello a few times a day but as soon as I close the door he flips out. Both come in at dark and stay in all night. I do worry about them but I live on a cul de sac and most of the cats are indoor and outdoor. Luckily not many right now so no fighting. I don't fool myself, there is danger and I worry. I had a cat that loved the outdoors and my ex took it and it lived in an apt. When I saw him all the life was out of him and he was miserable. I took him back and he was indoor and outdoor and lived happily until his old age. I guess I feel we deal with what we have.
Blackeney Green = just read your post and laughed out loud.


----------



## Blakeney Green (Jan 15, 2013)

cat owner again said:


> Blackeney Green = just read your post and laughed out loud.


Oh, I forgot to mention - to make matters worse, when I was walking past the confused owners after the chase, I told them, "Don't worry, I'll be back." That probably had something to do with the perception I was nuts. 

Not the best moment of my life, I'll tell you.


----------



## cat face (Apr 4, 2013)

Venusworld21 said:


> One of the rescues I work with adopted a cat out to a lady. She already had 2 and this gray tabby was her third. She came home one night a few days later to find the gray tabby standing on her porch. She quickly persuaded him to come back inside while frantically trying to figure out how he'd got out.
> 
> Then she turns around and realizes there are FOUR cats in her house....a few days after she adopted this cat, a stray looking JUST like it turns up on her front porch. How bizzare. She ended up bringing the stray to the no-kill shelter and we took him in and adopted him out.



Reading your story reminded me of one of my worst "doh" moments ever.

B.B. is an all black cat, and unfortunately black cats aren't easy to tell apart. (sometimes even up close) I mean, they're black and unless there is a distinguishing feature like a tipped ear, bob tail, etc. it's going to be tough to tell the difference. 

Ok, that's my defense.

Living in town, we have loads of cats wondering around each others back yards, sitting on top of garages, passing each other on fences, etc. Sometimes you can go out in the garden and see what looks like a feline town hall meeting!

One day, on the neighbors garage, I noticed a black cat and naturally thought it was mine. I called her name, the cat perked up. I whistled that special whistle I do for her and the cat stood up and started walking in my direction.
Convinced this was B.B. I grabbed the treat box and started shaking it and whistling so she would hurry off the garage and get home.
The cat quickened it's step and started to climb down, with purpose.

Never making a close inspection as the cat approached my garden, I started to prepare supper for B.B.
Now, sitting on top my wheelie bin right by the back door, the cat was watching me prepare a feast, with me chatting to it the whole time, like I do B.B.

Just as I finished up and got ready to set the bowls down in their place so she could eat, I turned and was shocked to see B.B. sitting in the doorway. With dinner bowl in hand, I stood there with a slack jaw! The next thought in my head was "oooooh POO!!" (except it wasn't "poo" if you get my drift) The reason, because B.B. is a big scrapper and will NOT tolerate anything in her territory she has not invited.
Within seconds of noticing B.B., she noticed the interloper sitting on the wheelie bin, the imposter noticed B.B., weird kitty noises ensued, black fur flashed by me and the chase was on, B.B. being very vocal the whole way!

I'm sure the garage cat thought, "Thanks for nothin lady!" lol


----------



## jusjim (Jun 30, 2009)

Carmel said:


> It's nice her cat came back, I think it reads more like a "neuter your cat!!" story. They say he's a tom that wonders about, which sounds like he isn't fixed, meaning most of these issues could be avoided if he wasn't off scrapping.
> 
> Actually, if you look at the comments, the top one is "cats should not be outside..........keep them in........." ... it has almost 100 thumbs down. :lol: The way their opinion is like night and day with USA always amuses me.


Way back in the 'Dark Ages' when I lived in England where I was born, we had three male cats at one time, all neutered, all wanderers. Of course there wasn't all the fancy food to keep them coming home for a snack. Chicken was a luxury that cats only got as table scraps etc. Cats were looked upon as pest control operatives first, and fuzzy little purring fur balls second.

If I lived in the UK now, Missy would be allowed outside during the day, but brought in at night because I suspect car headlights confuse cats. There is no way I'd allow Missy out here in Vancouver.


----------



## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

Blakeney Green said:


> Oh, I forgot to mention - to make matters worse, when I was walking past the confused owners after the chase, I told them, "Don't worry, I'll be back." That probably had something to do with the perception I was nuts.
> 
> Not the best moment of my life, I'll tell you.


This is one of the funniest lost cat stories I've ever read!!!! ROFLOL I can just see the looks on your neighbor's faces!


----------



## Zephyriddle (Mar 28, 2012)

My mom's cats look almost identical from behind. They're sisters but do have distinct faces and one is a classic and the other a mackerel tabby and one is larger, but if I didn't take this picture I wouldn't know who is who. 









Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## DeafDogs&Cat (Mar 27, 2013)

I've never had cats that go outside, and I never will. my parents instilled in me a very healthy fear of losing cats young. My parents went through 5 (indoor/outdoor) cats in 4 years (in a small, one horse town in N. Saskatchewan with the nearest highway several miles away) before we got the 2 Siamese (indoor only)that I grew up with... they lived for 15 years... that's enough for me  Besides, Munsch is deaf, it wouldn't be a good idea if he went outside anyway


----------

