I was one of those girls that everyone thought would end up as an old maid owning 30 cats. I always had a cat and no matter where I went my cats went with me.

I didn’t ditch the cats to move someplace that didn’t allow them. I simply found a place that welcomed them. I didn’t ditch the cats because I was dating someone who didn’t like cats. I tried to date men who either liked or at the least accepted the cats. I did not believe in getting rid of a pet once you’d adopted one. Adoption is for life.

I was in my mid-thirties when my reign of cats ended. The 17 year old died of old age and the 11 year old caught a strange cat disease. I’d brought a new cat home thinking to adopt it but the cat was ill and I took him back to his owner the next day. Apparently the illness was very contagious and the next thing I knew, my beloved cat Hadji became ill. He had contracted FIP – feline infectious peritonitis.

My cat who never went outdoors and never came in contact with other cats got sick from one single exposure to one cat. The vet told me that no vaccine would have prevented it and that there was no cure. He also told me that Hadji would die from it and a few months later he did. His lungs filled with fluid and he had difficulty breathing and long story short, try as they might to clear the fluid they had to put him to sleep. It was one of my worst days and I held him in my arms as they ended his life.

The vet told me not to adopt another cat for at least six months. He said that my home would be contaminated with the disease and not to bring another cat into it. For the first time in decades, I was catless.

Six months passed and I still wasn’t comfortable to risk bringing a new cat into my home so I waited. In the meantime someone attempted to break into my house. They failed to get in but there was no doubt they had tried. There had been several burglaries in the neighborhood and when I became the target, that was it for me. I lived alone and I didn’t like being a sitting duck so that week I went from being a cat lady to a dog person.

I went to the dog pound and adopted Gypsy Rose, a year and a half old german shepherd mix who spent the rest of her life as my companion and watchdog. She lived a long life with me, never ailing for much until she reached old age.

With that one unexpected encounter with a very bad cat disease and burglar, I embraced life with dogs as completely as I’d always embraced life with cats, going on to write books about my experiences with dogs. Today I have both a husband and a dog, Dakota. Her old family got rid of her for many reasons, one of which was that they claimed she tried to eat their cat. How’s that for a strange ending?

Tags: cat, cat disease, cat diseases, cat lady, cats, contagious cat disease, dog, dog person, dogs, feline infectious peritonitis, fip, old maid, sick cat

Category: Cat Tails, Dog Tails of Adventure

I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 when I encountered the black cat. We didn’t have a cat at the time but I was a cat lover. I think I was born a cat lover and we’d had several cats come and go.

I was in the living room when I saw a black cat going up the stairs. I figured it must have gotten in when someone opened the door and I followed it.

The stairs went up to a landing, turned a corner and then went to the second floor where the bedrooms were. I followed the cat all the way up the stairs and into my bedroom. I immediately closed the door behind me so he couldn’t get back out again.

I was lucky as a child to have a bedroom and adjoining playroom. There was no door in between, just a doorway where double doors had once been. There was no way out of the bedroom or playroom except through the door I had closed.

I went looking for the cat. There weren’t many places he could hide and I searched them all: under the bed, in the closet, behind the dresser, under the dresser, everywhere. I looked high and lo but I could not find a cat. There was no cat in my room.

The only explanation was that I’d seen the ghost of a cat. He looked real to me, as real as any living cat could look. I didn’t even question it when I first saw him. I just assumed a cat had somehow wandered into the house so I went after him to put him back outdoors.

It wasn’t the only time in my life where the spirit of a cat had come to me. Decades later I had another encounter with a cat’s ghost. It convinced me that our pets do have spirits that live on after death and that they can actually send us messages, especially when the bond of love was strong in life.

Tags: black cat, black cat's ghost, cat, cat stories, cat tales, cat's ghost, ghost cat, ghost of a black cat, life after death, spirit of a cat

Category: Cat Tails, Ghost Stories

If you’ve ever wondered whether pets have spirits and souls that live on after their body’s die, this is the story of Sunshine and her visitation of me from the beyond.

Sunshine was seventeen when she died. She’d been my companion since she was a kitten. From the time I was 19 to the time I was 36, Sunshine had been with me everywhere I went.

At the age of seventeen, she died peacefully in her sleep at home and I buried her in the backyard, piling the grave with stones so that no other animal would attempt to dig it up.

The next morning I woke up at dawn. I’m not a morning person and I rarely wake before 8 or 9 but for some reason I was wide awake at sunrise and I saw the strangest thing out the back window. On top of Sunshine’s grave was a cat. I’d never seen the cat before and it was lying on top of the pile of rocks which couldn’t possibly have been comfortable, but there it was.

I never saw the cat before and I never saw it again. I do not know what it meant except that it was strange for the cat to visit her grave shortly after her burial. That wasn’t the ghostly part, though.

A few days later I was sitting on the sofa reading a book. I become totally engrossed in the story when I read. I am no longer here and now, I am in the world of the book. I was not thinking about Sunshine at that moment. I think I was reading Terry Brooks.

I heard a loud purring behind me. My cats always slept on the sofa cushions behind my head and I still had a cat, an eleven year old named Hadji. I reached behind my head to pet him but he wasn’t there. I turned around and looked, but no Hadji.

That was odd. I’d heard a cat purring clear as day. I got up and looked around the room for him. No cat. I searched the whole house and found him sound asleep on the bed. He was totally zonked. There was no way he’d been up behind my head purring.

I believe that Sunshine was sending me a message that she was okay. It did not happen again, hearing purring where there wasn’t a cat. She had sent her message and she knew I’d gotten it.

Just before she died I had told her that it was okay to let go, that I’d be okay. I told her there were green valleys and birds and bugs and butterflies and that she should go there. I told her she be happy there and that she would feel young again.

When her spirit came to tell me goodbye I knew that she had found her happy place and that she’d gone to chase the butterflies.

Tags: black cat's ghost, cat, cat's ghost, cat's spirit, death, death of a cat, do cat's go to heaven, ghost, ghost cat, ghost of a black cat, ghost stories, ghost story, life after death, spirit, spirit of a cat

Category: Cat Tails, Ghost Stories