Pete and Caroline Hunt assumed that their 7-yar-old Bengal cat, Bilbo Baggins (pictured above), had been shot by a farmer. Bilbo went missing while the Hunts were attending an archery competition. They had taken their three cats with them in their motor home.
But when they arrived at their RV Park, there were some men shooting at a nearby farm.
Mr Hunt said: “There was a very loud bang from a shotgun very close to us.
“Bilbo isn’t used to noise like that and he ran off. As we had only just arrived at the site, Bilbo didn’t know his way around and must have got lost.
“I asked around all over the place to see if anyone had seen him. When I asked the farmer, he said, well, if he came in here I’d put him down.”
The Hunts were heartbroken to return home with an empty cat box.
Mrs Hunt said: “I thought we’d never see him again. Then someone from these vets in Taunton rang last Thursday and said did we have a Bengal cat.
“I said yes, but we lost him. She replied, we’ve got him here. I was so overjoyed I didn’t know what to say.”
Mrs Hunt had to drive to Taunton to pick up Bilbo. She said: “When I saw him he was very thin. Apparently, he had gone into this woman’s house through the window and she had fed him.
“She took him to her local vets and they read his microchip. Unfortunately, we hadn’t updated our address with the microchipping company but they managed to contact Estcourt House Vets in Devizes and they put them in touch with us.
“Bilbo walked straight up to me, put his little head on my sleeve and purred. I can’t tell you how delighted I was.”
Ed Davies at Estcourt House Vets said: “This shows how valuable it is to get your pet microchipped. But you must tell the microchipping company of any change of address. Fortunately, we had the Hunts’ contact details, which we were able to give the Taunton vets.”
This should serve as a reminder for you to check to see if your microchip contact info is up-to-date.
Microchipping is an essential part of any pet recovery plan, but that plan must also include putting a collar on your pet with ID tags (like TogetherTag) and a bell (to help you locate your cat early on, especially when it’s dark).
This week, a stowaway kitten was discovered perched precariously beneath the driver’s door of a Chiltern Railways train in the UK. Despite flying across the countryside at speeds in excess of 100 mph, the kitten was able to cling to the underside of the train over the course of his 900-mile journey until discovered and rescued at a station stop.
When drivers heard what sounded like soft mews coming from the underside of the driver’s cab door, they investigated, finding the black cat perched in a gear box area near the train’s wheels. He was lured out with a slice of salami, and taken to a vet where he was given a clean bill of health.
Chiltern Railways spokeswoman Emma Gascoigne said they believe the kitten leaped on to the train at Banbury train station in Oxforshire
She said, “The night before a driver at Banbury spotted the kitten run towards the train and then disappear. He couldn’t find it so he just carried on as normal.
“It wasn’t until the next night and 900 miles later than he realized that it must have been the same cat.
“This has never happened before. It managed to stay there for 900 miles and not fall off – it is absolutely amazing.”
Jodi Fox, a fleet resources assistant said, “It’s remarkable how he survived a 900-mile journey travelling at over 100mph – I was really shocked when I heard what had happened.
“He would have been able to see the tracks where he was and he must have been petrified.”
Jodi ended up adopting the kitten and naming him “Diesel.”
“When I got to work in the morning, I was asked whether I wanted a cat. I thought it was a joke but then I looked inside the box and I fell in love with him straight away – he just looked so cute.”
George the Cat, a clever orange and white tabby in the U.K., has figured out that the best way to get all the tuna juice and Tempations he wants is through hypnosis, and thanks to his owner, he’s accredited as a hypnotherapist.
George’s owner, Chris Jackson, registered George with the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming (BBNLP), the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists (UFH) and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association (PHPA). Each accepted a certificate from the non-existent Society of Certified Advanced Mind Therapists as proof of George’s credentials.
The UFH later admitted the mistake, which it said has since been corrected.
A PHPA spokesman said the organization makes great effort to ensure every applicant is a fully-qualified hypnotherapist.
The BBNLP said it exists only to provide benefits to its members, not to check or certify credentials.
Across the pond in the UK, Andy Williams of Bracknell, Berks, is alive because of the quick-thinking heroism of neighbor cat Hugo, who roused him from sleep when his house caught fire.
Williams woke in the middle of the night to find two-year-old tabby Hugo clawing at his face, trying to awaken him. He quickly realized his home was on fire.
Williams said, “I was in a really deep sleep until I felt Hugo’s clawing. As soon as I was awake he flew out the door. I got up to follow him and saw thick black smoke in the hall.”
The blaze was caused by an electrical fault. Firefighters told Williams that he would have been dead within minutes without Hugo’s intervention.
Williams added: “It is hard to comprehend that I owe my life to my neighbor’s cat.”
Darren Hill, Hugo’s owner said, “I am so proud of him.”
In a claim that strains credulity, Jim Cowell of the U.K. has come forward to claim that his cat Tizzie is the world’s oldest at 36+ years old.
Cowell says that Tizzie was found near some railroad tracks in the 1970s by a couple who gave the cat to Jim’s mother. This 1975 photograph shows Jim’s mother and Tizzie.
Jim hopes that his story will prompt the couple who originally found Tizzie to come forward and help verify Tizzie’s age. Tizzie’s vet has no record of her age, so she’s unlikely to make it into the record books without further proof.
Casper, a gorgeous 12-year-old green-eyed feline, boards the No. 3 bus outside his home in Plymouth, Devon, at 10:55 each morning, and travels the entire 11-mile route before returning home about an hour later.
It’s an interesting ride. On the route, Casper passes an historic dockyard and naval base, a city center, several suburbs and the city’s red light district (maybe he’s looking for cat houses?) Being a cat, however, Casper snoozes through most of the ride from his favorite spot at the back of the bus.
All First Bus drivers have been alerted to look out for him and wake him up to ensure he gets off at the right stop.
Susan Finden, Casper’s owner, said, “Casper has always disappeared for hours at a time but I never understood where he was going.
“I called him Casper because he had a habit of vanishing like a ghost. But then some of the drivers told me he had been catching the bus.
“I couldn’t believe it at first, but it explains a lot. He loves people and we have a bus stop right outside our house so that must be how he got started – just following everyone on.
“I used to catch the odd bus too so maybe he saw me and got curious what I was doing.
“Casper is quite quick for his age so he just hops on to the bus before the doors close. He catches the 10:55 am service and likes to sit on the back seat.”
Rob Stonehouse, one of the drivers on the route, said, “He usually just curls up at the back of the bus. Sometimes he nips between people’s legs but he never causes any trouble.”
In the UK this week, Amy Turnbull was reunited with her cherished cat, Allsort — after six years.
When Allsort disappeared in 2003, she was devastated, certain she would never see him again.
Despite posting “missing cat’” flyers everywhere and conducting an extensive search, there was no sign of the black cat.
Imagine her amazement this week when she opened a letter from a local vet, telling her that Allsort had found. Not only that, but he’d been living just five streets away.
Amy said, “It was one of the worst days of my life when I realized Allsort had gone. I was absolutely beside myself, it was horrific.
“I had given up all hope of ever finding him, it was terrible. I never thought in a million years I’d have him back.”
Allsort, who was only a year old when he disappeared, was taken in by an elderly couple who thought he was a stray. They made a fuss over him, but later he moved on to different owners. When the new owners they took him to the vet, an ID chip was discovered. Scanning it, the vet discovered that Amy was Allsort’s owner.
She added: “I had seriously thought he was gone forever and that he was dead.”
Although this story has a happy ending and demonstrates the value of microchipping your cat, it also demonstrates the value of keeping an ID tag on your pets. If Allsort had worn a tag, the elderly couple who initially found him would not have assumed he was a stray, and he could have been reunited quickly with Amy, sparing her six years of grief.
Theatrical cats like Ike the piano playing cat (right) could be reintroduced to London’s theatre district as part of an ongoing bid to improve actors’ working conditions in the West End.
The strategy has been proposed to address complaints of rats, sewage and insufficient backstage facilities in a number of the capital’s ageing venues. It’s just part of a strategy to prompt theatre owners to rectify the problems.
If the proposal is passed the union will push for a widespread reintroduction of cats to theatre buildings in a bid to combat the proliferation of vermin therein. According to the motion, there has been a “marked rise in vermin infestation” over the last few years and notes that cats not only represent “an environmentally sound alternative to poison and traps, but [are] also good for morale”.
However, Richard Pulford, SOLT’s chief executive, casts doubts on the effectiveness of Equity’s proposal, saying, “My understanding is that rats normally see off cats. And if anybody knows a building in central London with substantial basements which doesn’t have rats, they are doing pretty well.”
Famous London Theatre Cats
Over the years, West End cats have achieved pinnacles of renown that their thespian friends might well envy. Here are just a couple of the famous felines:
Beerbohm was perhaps the most famous of the London theatre cats, a resident at the Gielgud Theatre from the 70s until the early 90s, when he retired to Kent with the theatre’s carpenter. Described as a “regal looking tabby,” he was known for venturing out on the boards at least once during each performance. He died peacefully in March 1995 and a photo of him still hangs in the Gielgud. He is the only cat to have received an obituary in The Stage.
Boy Cat (pictured, right) resided at the Noel Coward Theatre. Boy Cat famously ate Princess Margaret’s bouquet at a royal gala and jumped onto the stage during a performance of the musical Five Guys Named Moe.
Lilian resided at the St George’s theatre in Islington, and was known for sitting in the third row of the stalls.
Sadler frequented the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances early in February 1956, weeks before he was to star in a run of School for Fathers.
Tango the Cat has become something of a local celebrity in Newquay, Cornwall, after an appearance on the UK television show, “Question Time.”
The popular show was being recorded at Treviglas community college, where Tango’s owner, Jackie Ellery works in the school canteen. Ellery got a call from a neighbor, asking if she’d seen Tango on the telly. “I’d been doing something else at the time but rewound it and there he was.”
Apparently, Tango’s curiosity had gotten the best of him, and he snuck in the back door of the studio, crept beneath a mixing desk and found his way onto the set.
“It’s lovely – he’s a mischievous cat anyway and because we live so close to the school he’s often in school grounds,” said Ellery.
“The sixth formers know him really well. He must have known something was going on.”
The show’s guests were oblivious to the feline padding around behind them. A stage manager nabbed Tango and released him outside.
Since his fleeting appearance on national TV, one-year-old Tango has become something of a local celebrity, appearing on the internet and discussed on social networking site Twitter.
Ms Ellery added: “Everyone is coming up and telling me about Tango’s appearance.”
A dog lover forwarded this article to me. Purrsonally, I think the cats in the experiment were smart enough not to play along with the scientists’ puerile games.
Cats outsmarted in psychologist’s test Strings experiment shows limits of feline intelligence
by James Meikle
Cats are not stupid, they’re just different.
It will cause outrage among some cat owners, but research suggests the pets are not as clever as some humans assumed – or at least they think in a way we have yet to fathom.
Psychology lecturer Britta Osthaus says cats do not understand cause-and-effect connections between objects. She tested the thought processes of 15 of them by attaching fish and biscuit treats to one end of a piece of string, placing them under a plastic screen to make them unreachable and then seeing if the cats could work out that pulling on the other end of the string would pull the treat closer.
They were tested in three ways, using a single baited string, two parallel strings where only one was baited, and two crossed strings where only one was baited.
The single string test proved no problem, but unlike dogs (which Osthaus has previously tested) no cat consistently chose correctly between two parallel strings. With two crossed strings, one cat always made the wrong choice and others succeeded no more than might be expected by chance.
Osthaus, of Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, said: “This finding is somehow surprising as cats regularly use their paws and claws to pull things towards them during play and hunting. They performed even worse than dogs, which can at least solve the parallel string task.”
The study helped show the limits of feline intelligence, said Osthaus, who conducted the research while a teaching fellow at Exeter University. “If we know their limits we won’t expect too much of them, which in turn is important for their welfare. I am not trying to say cats are stupid, just they are different. We are so anthropomorphic we can’t see the world through their eyes.”
There is just one consolation. Humans don’t understand string theory either.
This week, a stowaway kitten was discovered perched precariously beneath the driver’s door of a Chiltern Railways train in the UK. Despite flying across the countryside at speeds in excess of 100 mph, the kitten was able to cling to the underside of the train over the course of his 900-mile journey until discovered and rescued at a station stop.
George the Cat, a clever orange and white tabby in the U.K., has figured out that the best way to get all the tuna juice and Tempations he wants is through hypnosis, and thanks to his owner, he’s accredited as a hypnotherapist.
Across the pond in the UK, Andy Williams of Bracknell, Berks, is alive because of the quick-thinking heroism of neighbor cat Hugo, who roused him from sleep when his house caught fire. 
In a claim that strains credulity, Jim Cowell of the U.K. has come forward to claim that his cat Tizzie is the world’s oldest at 36+ years old. 
In the UK this week, Amy Turnbull was reunited with her cherished cat, Allsort — after six years.
Theatrical cats like Ike the piano playing cat (right) could be reintroduced to London’s theatre district as part of an ongoing bid to improve actors’ working conditions in the West End.
Boy Cat (pictured, right) resided at the Noel Coward Theatre. Boy Cat famously ate Princess Margaret’s bouquet at a royal gala and jumped onto the stage during a performance of the musical Five Guys Named Moe.
