Incerta, my moronic blue shorthair, just watched a freaking mouse scamper across my floor within 3 feet of her. She then, with great enthusiasm, miscalculated her leap onto her favorite bird-watching window sill, smacked into the wall beside the window with a resounding thunk, tried again, harder this time, and tore a hole in the screen. At that point, she freaked out about the scary outside air or sunlight or some damn thing, and howled until I went outside to carry her back in.
A friend of my step-dad’s stayed with us for a couple of weeks when he was between apartments and brought his cats. One of whom, Flip, was exceptionally dumb. He had a compulsion to jump up into very high spaces he couldn’t visually inspect, often with predictable results. For instance, he tried jumping to the top shelf of the linen closet (which was, of course, occupied); his return to earth was less than graceful.
Worse: there was a rectangular hole, about 1 square foot, in one of our walls up near the ceiling; it was left over from when the building had to fix a pipe (or something) behind said wall. I’d noticed Flip staring at that hole, but it never occurred to me he would decide to explore it. Until he went missing. Getting him out was quite an ordeal (in no small part because he would hide whenever we tried to rescue him), and he was lucky that the apartment’s floor extended to the interior wall space.
We had cats of our own in the apartment, and they were of course quite nasty and territorial towards Flip. He never paid them any mind, though, just went about his business. At first we thought he was a really cool customer. Now, however, we firmly believe that he was just too stupid to realize he was being threatened.
I’ve got the disappearing cat story beat. I have a black and white cat, appropriately named Tuxedo. He did not take it well when I moved from Chicago to NC, and for the first few months the only way I knew he was in the apartment was because his food bowl was being emptied and his litter box was being filled. When I moved again to a townhouse this July I wasn’t surprised when he did his vanishing act again. This time, however, there were two kittens in the household, so I had no way of knowing that they were the only ones eating the food I put out. I just assumed that he was coming out at night and eating, as he had before.
Then one day I was in the kitchen and heard a plaintive “meow”. Looking around, I saw a nose sticking out under the cabinet next to the stove. There was an opening, maybe four inches square, in the base of the cabinet, and Tuxedo had crawled in there to hide. I put some food in a bowl and put it right in front of the opening, and he started eating. I tried to lure him out by moving the bowl away, but he was having none of it, and of course there was no way I could grab him and pull him out, because he would just retreat back out of reach. I was a little concerned, and decided to try an experiment. I left a bowl of food in the middle of the kitchen floor before I went to bed that night, and kept the kittens in the bedroom with me.
As I suspected, the next morning the food had not been touched. Apparently he had managed to squeeze through the opening, but then couldn’t get out. I ended up having to pull the stove out to get him out (and he promptly ran off to hide under the bed). I securely taped some heavy cardboard over the opening to keep him from going back in there.
Hell, I’d take on a second husband if he will repel mice! The one I have thinks that is the reason the cats live indoors.
Poor dumb Incerta has pretty fur. She is, unfortunately, built rather like a feline version of me – thick body, short legs, and unimpressive tail. However, she is lacking my rapier wit, charm and grace.
When she was a kitten she bore an uncanny resemblence to Yoda, but she did eventually grow into her ears. She *is * sweet and funny, but she is dumb as doorknob.
She is, at this very moment, trying to sneak up on the elastic band tying my braid. <sigh> By SLOOOOOOWLY stomping across my lap. Yelling “NO!” and shoving her back onto the floor is not convincing her to try Plan B.
Any ideas on how to convince that damn mouse to steal one of my hair-ties? That damn cat would tear down a wall to get a hair-tie.
She is obsessed with hair-ties, possibly because she actually catches one every so often, and they ALWAYS pop her in the nose. It is remotely possible that her tiny brain is consumed with thoughts of revenge. It’s more probable that her tiny brain has forgotten the shame of losing her battles with the elastic band all fortyseven bazillion times.
C’mon, dopers! I don’t want to face having the stupidest cat in the world. Surely there are dumber pets out there horking on someone elses carpet?
Well, I did once get to watch one of my parents’ cats try sneaking up on the other one…in the middle of the room. He did try hiding behind the food dish, which was about as effective as you’d expect. The other one gave him a withering “what do you think you’re doing?” glare and wandered off before he could be pounced on.
Am I the only one who’s had cats trying to hide behind a sheet of paper which is flat on the floor? Yes, they apparently thought that the thickness of the paper was going to give them some cover.
You know how when you put new litter in the box the cats all want to be the first one to poop in it? Edison and Stokie crammed in at the same time, and Eddles crapped on Stokie’s head. It was absolutely hilarious. (Well, to me. My boyfriend was all, “God, you’re disgusting! Your sense of humor is developmentally retarded!” But he wasn’t there to see it.)
The poop just slithered down off his head and god, I can’t stop laughing about it. The patrons must think I’m a loon.
Once,while putting away the groceries, I left a plastic shopping bag on the floor. One of the herd started playing in it, so playfully I must add, and promptly got it stuck around its neck. It freaked right out and ran from one end of the house to the other leaving a trail of liquid shit the whole way. It finally came to rest under the couch where it relieved its bladder as an added bonus.
The joys of pet ownership. It almost brings a tear to my eye.
Thanks for the chuckles. She’s definitely in the top 10, but at least she isn’t the only stupid cat out there.
She’s freaked out about a bag around her neck, too. Fortunately, it was a huge paper bag with the rope handles, on a ceramic tile floor, so she couldn’t get enough traction to overcome the drag. I caught her right away, and the puddle was easy to clean up after I finally stopped laughing.
She won’t kill me in my sleep. She still hasn’t figured out where I keep the crunchy food.
Not my cat, he was incredibly intelligent and all round wonderful.
My flatmate’s cat was stupid enough to jump through windows that were closed - many times. We decided in the end that it was the beast’s way of finding out if the window was open - launch himself from the fence a metre and a half through the air, if it’s head hurt afterwards and it was still outside the house, then the window was closed and he should wait an hour and try again.
Down the road from where I used to live was a house shared by students and a cat.
Whether the cat actually belonged to them or came with the house I dont know but I suspect the latter.
When I first moved in one rainy night in the early hours of the morning I heard their doorknocker being very,very slowly knocked as in a good thirty seconds between each knock.
Eventually I stuck my head out of the window to see what was going on and saw the cat half jumping up,half running up the door to operate the door knocker with its mouth which it carried on doing until one of the students opened the door and let it in outof the rain.
We got used to this every time we had a wet night.
I am absaloutly certain that the cat taught itself how to do this.
I’m not sure if this shows how dumb she was or how smart, but we had a wonderful fat cat, Violet (RIP). She was my husband’s cat and when we got married she moved with us into a lovely new home with a fenced yard. She wasn’t used to going outside, but decided she liked it well enough. My cats moved in with us as well. My cats were more used to going outside and would bring us presents like lizards, voles, rabbits, snakes, squirrels, what-have-you. Hilarity would ensue as the cats tended to bring perfectly healthy animals into the house to play with them, so we would first have to get it away from the cat, catch it and then take it far away to release it (or take it to the wildlife rescue cener, depending on its condition).
Violet must have thought that she should do this nice thing for us as well, so one day she comes through the cat-flap with a large dark mass in her mouth, mewling for all she’s worth. I scream for my husband to bring a box and come help me get whatever it is away from her. He runs into the kitchen in time to see her deposit a nice fat pinecone on the floor. We howled. She must have stalked it for hours! We gave her some “good kitty” pets and congratulations on her prize and she strutted off, as pleased with herself as she could possibly be. She never felt the need to bring us any further gifts from outside, for which we were eternally grateful.
A few years later one of our cats brought in a baby sugar glider. We locked up the cat and had to work really hard to catch this cute little rodent. The glider got by us (they apparently can fit under a closed door) and started trotting down the hallway, where Violet was! Oh no! We needn’t have worried. Violet watched it as it made it’s way down the hallway and never made a move toward it. She just watched us catch it and resumed her bath. No biggie. We miss old Violet. She was a pip.
I had a 20 lb old guy named Mortimer who liked to sit in the kitchen window and watch birds on the fire escape. Mostly sparrows. He could only fit if the original inner window was open, it had an outer storm window/screen. One time I had the window closed, and the blinds closed. A sparrow was sitting on the fire escape and it was throwing a large shadow onto the blinds. Morty spots the shadow and thinks there is a giant bird RIGHT THERE. He starts running and jumps full speed into the glass and fell to the floor.
Once, when Charlie was a kitten, he sat next to me while I put the finishing stitches in a shower curtain I was making. When I finished, I realized that my needle and thread were gone. After much searching, we decided that the stupid cat must have eaten them. We went off to the vet first thing in the morning for x-rays. Sure enough, the vet reported, there was a needle in his tummy. But the vet and assistants were all perplexed about the other object in his stomach. There was apparently a pool going about what they would pull out of there. But one look at the x-ray and I knew - it was one of those old ponytail holders with the metal bit that holds the two ends of the elastic together! We’ve not had the opportunity to x-ray Charlie’s belly again, so who knows how many more he’s eaten over the years. And, fortunately, I’ve learned to be much more careful with needles.
LOL. A gift is a gift. I hope your parents were properly appreciative! It very well could take a lot longer, and be more dangerous, to stalk roadkill. Nice kitty.
I think they’d have been more appreciative if she’d left them on the linoleum in the kitchen rather than smearing them across the living room carpet. When visiting one time, I found a bird - in every room of the house :eek:
And, to be clear, it was all the same bird.
It almost brings a tear to my eye.