Posted four years ago: Speaking as a life-long cat lover, I can say with authority that some cats are on the locoweed side. Inexplicable behavior. One out of several hundred, I mean.
If none-too-bright cats are unhappy or freaked about some kind of confining situation, for example, they’ll sometimes do anything they can to escape, even at their own peril. Or they’ll take revenge upon the person they think is responsible.
(1) A woman I knew was driving with an anguished male cat on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The weather was cold, a mild snowstorm was blowing, and her car was surrounded by a fair amount of traffic. She was going the usual highway speed. For some reason she leaned over and rolled down the driver-side window, and the cat immediately leapt out.
(2) My ex-wife Maggie and I had a calico cat who was accustomed to outdoor access, and who became extremely upset when we moved into an 8th floor high-rise apartment. The first night we moved in the cat climbed onto a waist-high balcony wall that overlooked the eight-story drop. I put him inside the apartment as this obviously seemed risky. Later that night he got out and jumped. We’d loved him, petted him, fed him, etc. Go figure.
(3) In the late ‘90s I was driving down Franklin Avenue with a cat who couldn’t handle being in moving cars. Jett and Dylan were with me. The cat was howling and freaking, and at one point jumped onto my shoulder and took a serious milkshake dump all over my neck and onto my blue workshirt. I remember the smell filling the car and the kids screaming with laughter.
(4) My sister and I knew that our excitable cat hated water, so we decided to take him with us on a short rowboat trip to the middle of a pond. As a training exercise. We waited until we were 30 or 40 feet out and then let him go. He looked around, assessed the situation, jumped into the pond and swam ashore.
(5) A girlfriend and I were sharing an apartment on Boston’s Park Drive. Her male cat, Tom, was bunking with us. I love cats but Tom was extremely hostile to me — the only cat I’ve run into who was this negative. One night we came back from a restaurant and found that Tom had peed on my sleeping pillow on our conjugal bed. That was it. Over the next day or two we found someone who was willing to take him.
