BS: how wierd is this?

Subject: how wierd is this?
From: Morticia
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 03:46 PM

We've just had a really strange experience.As many of you will know we buried one of our cats on Saturday.Tonight the local cats held what, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be a 'wake'.Four or five gathered around the grave howling and 'crying'....they then appeared to try and dig the body up.
Has anyone seen anything like this before? Does it have some sort of purpose?

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 03:50 PM

With dogs, yes, but never with cats........veddy strange!

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 03:53 PM

Oh, Morticia! I've never seen something so concerted and all of mine get cremated and set on the shelf in a box, but even though there is no grave, I have seen mine mourn greatly for their pals. Maybe all the neighbourhood cats knew Pie well and are really grieving? Wish I could have seen that; how touching.

I've seen docu's which show elephants going to their graveyards and grieving, audibly, for their lost ones. Why not our moggies, too? Maybe Pie asked them to as a sort of farewell to you all.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Giac
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:27 PM

What a tribute to a departed friend. As for trying to exhume the body, I have heard of such a thing, but don't know to what purpose.

Recently I took a cat to be put down for some elderly friends. When I returned with his body, the man had dug the grave. After burying him, his owner put a large stone slab over the grave. He said it wasn't just to keep dogs from digging in the grave, but to keep the other cats from digging. He said he'd seen it happen before, so now all the graves in the cat cemetery have slabs over them. The other cats, even a couple who have come after, visit the graves periodically and just sit around on the stones.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:28 PM

This is a very neat story, and I can readily believe it. Yes, I'd call it, to all intents and purposes, a wake.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Jock Morris
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:33 PM

I watched my cat Lucy stand outside on Sunday and stare at the place where I buried Cleo. Just seemed to be there, head slightly bowed, in private thought.

Scott

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:35 PM

This is wonderfully amazing, Morty! Our dearly departed George-cat disappeared without a trace the month a fisher was seen in the neighborhood, so I haven't experienced anything like this. How does it make you feel?

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Morticia
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:38 PM

Well, I keep thinking there must be some rational explanation for it....but I'm damned if I know what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:39 PM

Could they have been digging as a possible "rescue" attempt? Perhaps not, the scent would probably tell them it wouldn't help. I've had cats work with me to find other lost cats, and I had one cat who was so upset when her adopted half-grown kitten-son was missing, she stole a hot dog off of the stove and went outside carring it like a cigar, yelling around it for him to come and get it. (He turned up later) So I don't find something like this to be beyond belief.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: gnu
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:43 PM

They know Pie is in there and they are trying to help him (her ?.. I forget ) get out... perhaps ?

gnu

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:43 PM

I have seen something of this sort....several years ago we had a cat who was part manx and when we took it in, our male siamese babied him, like he did with all of the new cats....he would be mommy to them.....well Garf (the part manx) disappeared one summer night, with no trace. We all thought that some one took him for some weird ritual or for dog training......

Well, one afternoon in August I had to move a pile of rocks from one part of our yard to another.....well, being the lazy child that I was (who later grew to be a lazy man), I went looking for something that would help me to get it done with the least effort on my part as possible....well there was a wheelbarrow hanging upside down over one of our many defunct lawnmowers.....I lifted it up and there lying in the grass, was a decaying Garf.....He had been dead for a month....

Well, that night dad came home from work and du him a grave in a part of our yard that was dedicated to our late pets.....we have buried so many of them there over the years.....well, for weeks and weeks afterwards we would hear this loud carrying on, and when we would look outside, we would see our siamese standing over Garf's grave, belting out the most heart wrenching song I have ever heard....Losing Garf really tore the siamese apart....for Garf was the last cat he had ever mothered.....and his health steadily declined.....he died himself a few months later....

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 04:59 PM

I don't see why this seems weird at all. Any funeral looks just as strange, especially to an outsider. Or is the question "how did they know?". If so, it's not so much weord as natural for species members to know about each other. What is weord, seems to me, is believing that it shouldn't be possible. 'Course if you belong to the Crick school of core materialism, it might seem weird, but that just comes from holding on too desperately to an unworkable paradigm. To a flat-earther, satellite communications probably seem all weird too.

A

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 05:07 PM

Amos, I think you're being uncharitable. There's a world of difference between believing that it shouldn't be possible and not realizing that things like this happened. Morticia's comment certainly implies the latter, but not necessarily the former.

Also she didn't SAY it was weird, she ASKED if it was weird, and how common it was.

I'd say she was being pretty open-minded. Your response, however, was far less so.

Calling 'em as I see 'em,
Alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Helen
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 05:36 PM

mousethief,

Knowing Amos a little from previous discussions I'd say it is more likely that he is approaching it scientifically rather than "uncharitably", i.e investigating it analytically. But I wouldn't presume to answer on his behalf because I am only guessing.

What is the Crick school of core materialism, by the way?

On the general topic, I have asked my other cats - different cats on different occasions - to help me search for their cat friends when missing. Usually I can get the cat to walk to the closest spot and look in the right direction, e.g. under the house. If they don't know where the other one is they will stand in one spot and look at me balefully.

I usually use Reiki to find my cats, though. I can usually tell if they are all right or not and not long after I send out the Reiki radar they will often come back and let me know that they are all right.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Hawker
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 05:47 PM

Morticia
Weird or not, I think it sounds really wonderful, what a moving experience!
Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 05:53 PM

My apologies, Morticia, if I seemed in any way to rebuff you. And thanks MT, for saying it as you saw it. A refreshing trasit.

No offense intended. The "Crick school of core materialism" was a badly turned phrase of my own. I meant those who espouse hard-core materialism as their sole philosophy, holding that all knowing must come from nerves, brains, cells and molecules. This school of thought was championed by Francis Crick of DNA fame; he wrote a book shortly before he dies called The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. (New York: Charles Scribner s Sons. Koch, Christof and Crick, Francis ), which asserts this belief and relgates such spiritual notions as intuition (and "integrity" and maybe even honor, justive, beauty and all them great and wonderful attributes) to biochemical snap-crackle-and-pop.

I think it is much more likely that cats would be able to see and know each other remotely, using non-physical abilities, than it that people would, given that people are hammered into semiotic forms of thought from an early age and therefore tend to build wallks of symbols around their natural abilities. Just my NSHO.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 05:55 PM

I'm not talking about his reaction to the phenomenon, which is perfectly fine, but his reaction to what he perceived was Morticia's feelings/thoughts about it, which I feel he read quite inaccurately. But I suppose we need Amos to tell us what he thinks about my comment; perhaps he feels I'm not worth even responding to (he wouldn't be the first! nor likely the last). Or maybe he's just busy doing more important things (goodness knows *I* should be!).

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 06:00 PM

Oh look, there he is! We apparently crossed in the mail.

Amos, it speaks well of you that you are able to accept criticism without blowing up. Even if you disagree with me, to accept that somebody else might have something worth saying about one's own demeanor is an all-too-rare trait these days.

Interesting what you say about materialism; I tend two be of two minds in that regard; I think it likely that all our mental states have physical analogues in our brains; and yet I believe in free will and the ability to make choices whose contents are not pre-programmed by our neurochemistry. I don't have any reason for believing either of these that you might call scientific at this point; it's largely a sense of gut feeling.

I do enjoy reading as much as I can about cognitive science and theory-of-the-mind. Currently I am reading The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 06:10 PM

Let's face it, friends. Cats are weird. It's part of the definiton of "cat"........I know that cats "know" things they don't choose to share, just ask one!.......LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 06:37 PM

Sorcha nails it!!! Good stories here gang.

When Luff died, Cutter obviously missed him and was very "down" for a long time, even though we had other cats. They had been buddies all of Luff's lifetime. Interstingly though, it was Hobie who had the weird reaction.

Luff adored and owned Karen. When she went to bed, she had to lie on her left side (no other position would do) and Luff would stretch out with his head on her shoulder and purr loudly as they went to sleep. Most morning found them in the same position. On the night Luffy died, Hobie, who was distinctly MY cat, crawled into bed and assumed Luff's position. He had never done it before and he never did it again. I guess he somehow sensed that Karen needed him there on that night.

Yeah.....they're weird little animals.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 07:06 PM

Morty, have you ever seen 'Famous Fred'? Perhaps Pie was the great Pelvis Pie when we weren't watching......

I think probably yes. They did.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 07:22 PM

I don't know but I find the wake idea difficult. I am sure that cats do get attached to other cats but I have only ever seen that with cats belong to the same household. Our cats have always seemed to be hostile towards other cats in the area and I certainly can't imagine them mourning one's passing.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 11:07 PM

Every time I've had a cat who was near its time to die, My house has been paid a visit by a "strange" cat, that is, one none of us had seen before (different appearance each time), who would sit and make mournful noises outside a window or door. And after my cat's passing, the "strange" cat would come no more. This happened most recently this past November. In six years of living where we do, it's the only time a "stray" has even been seen in our neighborhood. I don't try to explain phenomena such as these. I just marvel at the Mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: JenEllen
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 04:49 AM

Aw, Morty....

Remember in kat's bit about moving the kitties to the new house? It was funny to see how many people responded to the fact that the cat's environment was changing. What could be a more life-altering change than losing a core member of your social group??? I'm sure they knew in their own way. No doubt about it.

When we put Mike's dog to sleep earlier this year, we buried her while it was snowing out. She was just the kind of cantankerous old bitch you'd think wouldn't have a friend in the world, but when I got up the next morning, there was no snow on her gravesite, and Gar was covered in snow. Here was this 18yr old cat out keeping his friend 'warm' until the very end.

Those kitties may be weird, Honey, but you are too. I couldn't be happier for it.

Jen

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 07:25 AM

Animals have a lot of sensory abilities that humans either do not have a all (magnetic, thermal radiation, detecting directions from water wave patterns) or only in another bandwidth (e.g. of electromagnetic waves; smell). Some of these abilities have only recently been found (sometimes much to the surprise of the respective scientists) many of them are still awaiting detection.

Since times of old special and at times ununderstandable abilities of animals have puzzled humans. Sometimes a clever researcher has found the reason for an ability, e.g. in the Clver Hans case, many puzzles are not solved yet.

From what I know about animal cognition and sensory abilities I see no reason at this time to postulate extrasensory perception instead of (not yet known or know but not used yet for explanation) sensory perception. I see no evidence or need yet to leave the sensory domain. That's interesting, surprising and puzzling enough for me.

In the 1960s and 70s there were loads of laboratory experiments on paranormal feats or abilities of animals (often cats trying to make shine a warming lamp more often than could be expected by chance). This work has died down since one of the best known researchers (Levy) was caught cheating. Even today's parapsychologists don't look back at this research as convincing.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:22 AM

We grew up with dogs, not cats, and one of my sisters had this Great Dane who had huge litters. Once she had 14, and one died, and my sister took it out and buried it while the mom wasn't looking. That dog searched for that baby for weeks, rounding rounding, just hunting forever. Never found the grave. The next litter (15), one died, and my sister showed her the dead puppy, which she sniffed once. Then sis disposed of that poor wee one, and the dog never looked for it at all.

(slightly more creep) That dog could count, and multiply, and divide. The time they had puppies while stateside I went to midwife, and 12 babies were born (one was born dead but we CPRd it back). The dog would keep the puppies either in 2 piles of 6 or 3 piles of 4, feeding one pile while letting another sleep and the third, if applicable, romp. She seemed to know all the individual smells. You could move puppies between piles while she wasn't looking, and she'd switch them back. If you took one and didn't put it anywhere, she'd seek till she found and then put it in its correct pile. It was too cool.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:28 AM

Our dog raised our cat - the cat was too young to be taken from her mother when we got her, so the dog fed her and cleaned her and carried her round in her mouth. They used to go for walks together and played together and slept beside each other. The cat never liked people - she ran from everyone and lived out with the dog. When our dog eventually got too ill to be helped and had to be put down (at the ripe old age of nearly 16) the cat didn't last much longer. She became a bit more friendly with us humans, but seemed to just give up the will to live and died not long after.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:09 AM

Isn't extrasensory perception something of an oxymoron? If you perceive it, you're sensing it -- maybe not with the 5 senses we already know about, but you're sensing it nonetheless.

The stories y'all have told about cats "mourning" their friends are great. I have no doubt that other animals, and certainly cats, are perceptive in ways we humans are not. I find it very intriguing.

I've only ever had 3 cats, and only 2 were simultaneous, and they hated each other. Neither died in our care; both had to be given away due to one thing or another. And with my allergies (and my stepdaughter's asthsma (sp?)), we won't be getting another cat any time soon, alas.

alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Morticia
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 12:11 PM

Amos, I have not said, and do not intend in any way to give the impression that if I can't touch it , it ain't real...like a number of people I will tend to use Occams Razor wherever possible. In this instance, I simply had not seen nor read about such a phenomenon and was curious to know if anyone else had. I was actually more intrigued, not by the neighbourhood cats 'mourning' his passing, if indeed that was what they were doing, but by their attempts to dig him up again since presumably, as someone else has stated, they could smell/sense that he was beyond survival.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Penny S.
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 05:36 PM

Has anyone heard the the story of the King of the Cats - which hinges on the response of local cats to the death of one of them?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 05:39 PM

I haven't. Would love to. Can you tell it, Penny? Or is it too long or something?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 05:45 PM

This is really gross, and not serious, but maybe they were hungry.......? Amos and Wolfgang, I am not sure we are discussing "psychic" phenomena here, just that other animals do know things humans don't......how, we don't know, but we do know that they have sensory abilities beyond or different from ours.

I've often wished I had whiskers to tell me things that cats and dogs know, or their acute sense of hearing since mine is so depleted. Don't know if I want the sense of smell, tho........or sonar like the ceteacans (did I spell that right?) A tail to switch to indicate emotion would be nice too, sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 07:04 PM

Thread of the WEEK.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:32 AM

This re-posted from an old thread...

The old Farmer's wife sat by the hearth, an old grizzled tomcat snoozing at her feet, when the door creaked open. The old Farmer entered, and he slowly sat down in his rocker facing the woman. " John!" she said," what ails thee? Your skin is pale and your eyes wide!"

The Farmer told her this story: " As I made my way home from Market this night, I was summat frighted as I approached the Churchyard, for the wind was at the trees and made them sound like spirits in the darkness. As I drew abreast o' the tombstones, I seen a strange light approaching upon the road toward me, and I hid myself among the headstones. As I peered out, the light come nearer, and I seen it was a lantern upon a pole, and it were carried by a great Black Cat! All at once I heard a kind of eerie singing, and it were coming from six other cats walking behind the black un. These six carried a golden coffin, and on the golden coffin sat a silver crown that shined in the moonlight." As the farmer spoke these words, the old tomcat that sat at his wife's feet suddenly sat up, and he stared at the Farmer with the fire shining in his eyes." John!" whispered the Farmer's wife," Do you look at Old Thomas!" The Farmer replied " I see him," and continued.

" These cats went into the graveyard not far from myself. The Black Cat stuck the lantern-pole in th' gound, and the other cats put down the casket and begun to dig. ' Poor Tim !" yowled the Black Cat. At this, the old tomcat suddenly stood up staring at the Farmer, his shackles raised and his tail in the air. The wife said " Oh John! What has come over our Thomas?" The Farmer replied " I see him, woman!" and continued.

" With mournful singing these cats then lowered the coffin into the grave, as the Black Cat held the silver crown high in the air. Then, slowly that cat turned and he begun to walk right toward me, and his eyes looked like... like.. like Thomas's eyes do now!" And it was true that the old tomcat's eyes were now as big as saucers, and he seemed twice his normal size. " And it was then that Black Cat shown me the crown and said to me in a kind of a low voice ' tell Tom Timson that Tim Thomson is dead!' At these words from the Farmer, the old tomcat began to let out a loud growl, and to grow even larger.

Suddenly, the old tomcat shouted THEN I'M KING OF THE CATS ! and he flew up the chimney and was seen no more.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:35 AM

YES!!

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Firecat
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:12 AM

I've seen ours doing that sometimes as well. When Fluff died (I was 12), Dad buried her and I was woken up later that night by a loud miaowing. One of our other cats, Harper, was standing over where Fluff was buried. I ended up crying myself to sleep that night, partly for Harper, and partly for myself. Harper disappeared a bit later on and was never seen again.

I cried for myself cos Fluff had been around since I was a baby and I was used to having her around.

I think cats do grieve, cos they're like humans in many ways. We grieve when someone we love dies, and so do most animals, regardless of what species they are.

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 09:08 AM

Mousethief: Isn't extrasensory perception something of an oxymoron

Yes, it is a classic case in my eyes. But parapsychologists have used this term since close to one hundred years now. There once was an effort to replace it by the term 'extrasensory experience', but the badly worded term has won. I feel I should use their own term.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:10 PM

Wolfgang, lighten up. It was a joke.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:32 PM

That's the one, as i have it on a record of Bernard Miles. Great, EJ.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: how wierd is this?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:56 AM

On the wierdness scale that only comes to about 3.14159+