The cat has been acting weird lately. By lately I mean about 6 months. In the evenings she has started meowing in certain areas of the house for no reason that I can see. Initially she started standing on the top of a chair facing this one corner, meowing and trying to climb the wall. It drives me nuts. I will be minding my own business and the cat starts to snivel and whinge facing this wall. I started by yelling at her, “NO! Get down!” and she would look back at me with this, “Oh MOM!” face and turn around and start it all again.
Then she added a new annoying habit of sitting on the little rug right in front of the front door of my apartment that leads to the common hallway of my house/building/hovel. She sits there looking at the door and howls. I don’t know why. She never goes out there and I wouldn’t let her out there. The neighbour and her dog could come in and freak the cat out. She could escape if the front door was open. She has occasionally escaped from my suite but she always acts frightened once out there and gets back inside very quickly on her own. I tell her. “NO!” quite vehemently and she knows what that word means. Basically, what I am trying to say is my cat sits there making ungodly Siamese noises at a door that I don’t let her out of and have never let her out of. There is nothing out there of any interest at all. I don’t get it. Sometimes I wonder, in her freaky Siamese brain, whether she has forgotten that I am actually in the apartment and is yowling for me. So I sweetly call for her and she will come over for a pet and a cuddle and then run back to the rug to sit facing that door again. I have tried the “NO!” thing and like the corner issue she just looks back at me with this sad face. I try to engage her in play and she ignores me. This doesn’t happen every night but when it does it lasts for hours. Even after I have gone to bed for the night. I am worried she is bothering the neighbours with her yowling. Not to mention my desire to strangle her over the constant noise. The other night I reached some sort of bizarre limit and actually yelled at her, “I’m sorry your life sucks! Get over it, watch TV like the rest of us and SHUT UP!” It didn’t work. Well I did succeed in making myself feel like an ass.
Then I tried something that has helped a great deal that either nobody believes or outright laughs at me when I tell them. When Yoshi starts to howl I let her do it for a little bit and then I say, “Yoshi! Leave the ghosties alone. Just leave them alone. They won’t bother you! It’s OK.” And she usually stops. If she starts up again or talks back to me then I ask her if the ghosties are bugging her. So I say out loud, “Hey Ghosties! I know you are probably bored as hell but could you leave the cat alone for a bit. Please leave Yoshi alone.” I give Yoshi a little cuddle telling her that I told the ghosties to leave her alone and she mellows right out and goes to snooze by her heating vent. I swear to you. It works.
WHAT THE FUCK?
I live in a house that is approximately 95 years old that has been divided into apartments. I have no idea what the history of this place is. Who am I to say that there are not any ghosties lurking around here picking on my cat? I have never felt afraid in this place – even in the basement. I don’t think anything ‘bad’ is in the house but maybe some spirits want to play with her. What do you think?
Any other ghostie stories out there? Anybody got spirits playing with their pets?
6 comments:
No spirits, per se (but really, how am I to know?), but our Abby kitty used to do all that stuff. She passed away last Memorial Day (old, old kitty) but in every single place we lived she would sit and cry for no reason at different spots on the wall, the door, right in my face.
The oldest one we have now, Katie, likes to "kill" socks. The house will be nice and quiet after I put the kids to bed, and all of a sudden Katie will start this meowling (meow and yowl). It's very weird, because she's trying to talk with a sock in her mouth. If she keeps it up too long, I yell her name and she'll drop the sock. Sometimes she even brings it downstairs to show me. What a good hunter!
They're quite amusing, aren't they?
Pouncequick Tailchaser used to do that too. He would be soundly sleeping then jerk his head up as though he heard something. Then he would be off in a frantic race up and down our hallway, bouncing of the furniture etc. We called it chasing ghost mice. I'm with Spoonleg. I think they can see things we can't.
P.S. An Electric blue eyelash wiggy thingy hs taken up residence on my needles. We have to come up with a better name for them. Naming is your forte...
misfit-that is so cute. Killing socks and then muffled meowing with the sock gag. That is so damned CUTE. *squishing Yoshi over cuteness*
Spoonleg-You know I already think we could exchange cats and probably not see any differences. Our cats do so many crazy things. I LOVE IT when Yoshi does the running feak out. Except late at night for noise issue reasons. Mostly it is post-poop. Sometimes she hits every piece of furniture and never touches the ground in her laps. I do think animals sense things we can't. But with some beasties it may just be a personality flaw or something.
HDL-That is too funny! Using the spray bottle on Yoshi will trigger one of those running freak-outs Spoonie is talking about. But your cat hanging in the window-what a riot. My old downstairs neighbour's cat used to do that and I would walk on the porch to get to the front door and walk by this cat hanging like a drape in their front window. It would crack me up every time. I think their cat was deficient in some way as I was told it would try to climb on the upper ledge and get stuck. So I was actually seeing a kitty is distress. Now that is just sad.
Fueltank-I think it is just YOUR cats that are aliens. Just sayin'
L Bo-Dear Pounce - such sweetness. I guess Satu is too busy with Sable to be paying any attention to ghosties. If she did those ghosties would so be toast!
my cat runs laps post-poop too! i thought she was just nuts (well... she is) but now i know she's not alone. my other cat likes to claw at the wall (he's declawed luckily) like he's trying to dig something out of there.
they both do a little late-night howling on occasion but i just thought that was part of their cat thing. but, my kitties don't do it for hours. i guess you're ghosties are more persisitant than mine.
i say if talking to the ghosties works, can't be too crazy.
Candy-it is interesting to hear about another cat who post poop freaks. I think it is really funny. I have posted about it before because it cracks me up so much. It is like she is 'Free and Unburdened.'
OMG! Buddy used to meow at the walls and corners of our apartment and I told him the same thing!
We've moved into a house that's over 100 years old but has a much better vibe. Guess what? The talking-to-walls has stopped.
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