my watch cat

by Kiersten Hanson
(Norway)

I found out I've got myself a good watch cat. I'm not used to that so I haven't been very observant when it comes to my cats’ weird behavior. I have one cat that is 5 years old and a bit skittish, she hides in the windows and disappears whenever anything new comes around, like new friends or moving. This other cat I have, Ozzy, is very friendly and active and loving. He wanders into my neighbors houses when they leave the doors open as they tend to do these nice summer months when the weather is warm and we have no air conditioning (I'm living in Norway where it doesn't get warm enough often enough to need it)
Well, my wonderful loving cat used to wake me up once in a while early in the morning if he didn't have enough food or water in his bowl and I'd end up throwing him out because he can wait an hour for his food. He'd gotten into the routine of letting me sleep long enough until I had to get up for work and I haven’t had any problems with him in months! Just a few weeks ago, he woke me up, going crazy, hopping from one windowsill to another over my bed and biting me on the rear and digging under the covers trying to get me up. I thought he was hungry so I pushed him out the window, but then I thought I’d walk around the house to see if anything was up, this was about 4 in the morning. Well, the neighbor lady who owns my house, uses the water out of my house to water her plants all day and all night long. So I hear the water going all day and all night, but this night, the hose had fallen off the facet and had made a little pond in front of my house! We I went to check the front door, the cat was standing by the little home made pond meowing like crazy! So that was the first time he “saved” me. The next time was just last night. I woke up about 4:45 when he was meowing like crazy again and hopping around, biting me and licking my face. Again I assumed that he just wanted food and I tried to push him out the window and he just refused to go, hopping around, out of my hands, refusing to be near the window. So I just picked him up and threw him out, I needed my sleep! When I finally got up at 6 to get ready for work, I opened up the bedroom door to let my cats come in for breakfast and just left the door open to get some air in the place. It’s a little house with no area left unseen no matter where you are in the house, so I have no problems leaving doors or windows open at any time of the day when I’m home. So I’m making my sack lunch and having breakfast when I hear something in my bedroom, I walk in and find a man standing there! Drunk as a skunk, who knows what else he was on. He just looks at me and says, I don’t think I’m supposed to be here and walks out! I called the police and talked to my neighbors later that day and they told me that a man had been chased by the police about the time my cat had gone crazy and woken me! He had been chased down a small cliff from one neighbors yard to another’s and apparently ended up in mine! I’m assuming that he must have slept in the small space behind my house where I keep firewood, there’s no room for anything else there or you’ll fall off another cliff. If he had walked by the house I would have seen him, so he must have run behind my house when Ozzy started acting up. Now I know to take him seriously when he starts going nuts like that! I’m just glad it there hasn’t been anything too serious that he’s warned me about yet!