crazy cat?

[CWaters425]

Recently my cat has been sitting on my dresser staring at the wall/ceiling. There is nothing there but she wags her tal like something is. If i leave the room she stays there, then i come back in like 20 mins later and she'll turn toward me and "chirp?". Is she seeing ghost's?

-Chris.

[Traci]

Are you sure there wasn't a bug...or spider web...or cob web, etc? A cat will chirp at something such as that, or birds when looking out the window.

[CWaters425]

the lights were off, there were no moving shadows, i turn the lights on and didnt see anything, no spiders, nats, flies anything. i duno what she was looking at.

[kehorner]

Something in the walls? Could be a small mouse running around inside the walls. We get those in between the floors of our building... drives my boys nuts.

My boys are also kind of dumb. About a month ago, Spike was staring at a spider on the ceiling. So I got up there and killed the spider. Now, every so often, he'll just sit there and stare at that spot on the ceiling, I guess waiting for the spider to come back...

I do have one cat who I think truly does hallucinate things, though. Poor Captain Hook is my "special" boy. He had a very high fever for a long time when he was a kitten... He'll sit in the middle of the room and all of a sudden let out a chirp and stare into the air at something. Then, he'll jump three feet in the air trying to catch whatever it is that he (and only he) sees. Once, he even caught it... He landed with his front paws together and then started washing them. Poor guy just hasn't figured out that there aren't microscopic bugs flying around the house that only he can see.

My mom actually had an interesting idea... People get floaters in their eyes, but we understand what they are and ignore them. But what if cats don't really understand what they are looking at, and interpret the floater in their eye as something actually flying around in front of them...? I don't know if cats get floaters or not. But it could explain why they seem to only see these "bugs" when they are staring at walls or ceilings, and why only they can see them.

But don't worry. Your cat is no crazier than the rest of the cats in this world!

[pixiemaxiris]

Max (our 8-month-old male) found a spider crawling on the ceiling above his cat tree one day. He was very agitated that he couldn't reach it--kept trying to figure out how. I picked him up and held him up to the ceiling so he could bat it off.

Since then, I have caught him staring at the ceiling above his cat tree every couple of days. I think he is waiting for the spider to come back.

Maybe your cat saw a bug there one time and is just waiting for another to appear?

[Cleo]

Then, he'll jump three feet in the air trying to catch whatever it is that he (and only he) sees. Once, he even caught it... He landed with his front paws together and then started washing them. Poor guy just hasn't figured out that there aren't microscopic bugs flying around the house that only he can see.

My cats do this and go crazy for "sun dust". And of course, when they jump and play at the window that the sun is directly shining through, they'll create more sun dust and swat at it.

[k9Karen]

Do cats get 'floaters' in their eyes? Just a thought. My other ideas have already been suggested - something in the wall or something was there at one time, but it's now gone.

[E's]

My dad always claimed that when cats did this, they were "Seeing the Little People." Dad himself was apt to see the Little People and other such characters from time to time... for years he had an invisible pet dragon on an invisible leash - I seem to recall the dragon's name was George - it accompanied Rip to bars and sat by his chair as he drank his beer...

What my cats saw last night was spooky but real - cute and scary at the same time: The living room double window in my apartment comes almost to the floor; I've placed plastic lockers there so Q and Pinto can look out to the walkway and the deep catch tank beyond, which is next to a wooded creek. Often a yellow tomcat stalks by and asks to come inside - of course I would never let him, even though I feel sorry for him.

But last night a raccoon came up and looked right in the window - until it saw me and waddled off! Pinto ran away but Q was strangely upset and wistful: he stayed by the window and called to the creature over and over for a long time, like it was someone he knew! Brrr! I like raccoons and most wild critters, but I'm also an old country girl... know they can be quite dangerous. I resisted the urge to go outside to try to see where it had gone, yet couldn't seem to get it out of my mind... What a strange, strange year this has been for Q and me both!

[k9Karen]

That IS spooky!! Q is quite a remarkable cat. I suspect he knew that racoon in a former life - somewhere in The Continuum.