are there such things as cat ghosts?

I think its possible. I have no idea if theres a scientific explanation, but its very likely.

I started researching that after one of our cats died unexpectedly and we all had some very interesting experiences with feeling him laying next to us or walking along the bed.

There is a book called Animal Ghost Stories and you can also find a lot of interesting things if you google cat ghosts.

thankz jugglingpaynez. i will totally test it.

thankz jugglingpaynez. i will totally test it.

My mom thinks she catches glimpses of their final feline fatality.

Absolutely there are! Why not?? Animal spirits can stay behind just as our might...
My dog Dirk's spirit came to meet the spirit of the dog I had after him. Jess was dying in my arms and I absolutely "felt" Dirk come for her.. only when I told her to run to him, did she finally go....

I have seen/felt my passed cats as well..

My ever practical mother, who has never said a superstitious thing in her life, said once recently that she woke in the middle of the night and felt a weight upon the bed by her feet. She could feel her lap dog next to her arm. She said since the cats they'd had while living in that house had all been female she said "Hello old girl, I've missed you. It's good of you to come visit. Now lie down, it's cold, and go to sleep with me." Then she swore that the weight settled by her legs, cat sized, and she went back to sleep.

This topic has been haunting me this week. My companion and greatest friend in the world, Aloof, died last weekend. It was 100% unexpected and I only knew something was wrong the very day that I lost him.

That first night in a dream he asked "What happened?" That just about killed me. Ever since I have been upset wondering can he see me, is he where I am thinking I am neglecting him and do not love and cherish him, is he lonely and sad? Slowly I stop seeing him everywhere I look in the house but it is still happening. I may just be expecting to see him and so I am seeing what is not there. It makes me very sad, though, and of course I am still mourning his loss.

I am open-minded about spirits and ghosts and since his death have taken the blanket I had always laid out for him each night and have placed it on my bed hoping for the ghostly feeling of him there beside me.

My parent's dog 'saw' the ghost of our cat before they even knew the cat had been run over. The dog and cat had been very close friends.

Hugs to you Kerian. I am so sorry you lost your beloved fur friend. It's so incredibly hard.

When I was in fifth grade and lost my beloved cat, I felt an invisible cat jump onto my bed several times at night. Of all the cats I've loved and lost since then, I've never had the same experience.

If cat ghosts exist, I believe that like human ghosts it's because they've gotten sort of 'stuck' between worlds. Perhaps Aloof has found his way onward and you'll see him again on your own passing.

Teazle--I'd love to hear more details about your dog's experience.

#10 "Teazle--I'd love to hear more details about your dog's experience"

What happened was that my parents tried to get the dog to go into the kitchen, where he usually slept at night. He refused to go past the doorway, and just kept staring at 'something' in the doorway, at cat height. He then insisted on coming upstairs with them and spending the night in their room, which he wasn't usually allowed to do.
The next morning they found the cat's body in the road outside the house.

#10 streamsong:
Thank you.

#11 - We have had similar experiences with our current cats sensing...something...on our beds. Recently our youngest cat was spooked when I was laying on the bed with him. He kept pawing and sniffing at the air as if he were trying to touch something in front of me. I don't care if no one believes me about this, I know our old pets are still visiting us.

K, I had a feeling you would end up posting on this thread. Take heart. If Aloof feels he hasn't said goodbye, he will come when you least expect it. For our cat Cupid, it took a couple of weeks before we sensed his presence.

#13 jp:
I was trying to avoid the group entirely but when I saw this thread topic I no longer could. Thank you, jp. I have not felt Loofy's presence yet. :(

I always recommend people read about The Rainbow Bridge online when a pet has died. I and my son have found it comforting.

Three years ago my son's first pet, a truly misanthropic cat named Maddie (and also known as The Orca because of her markings and size) had to be put to sleep. Helping him through that was really hard. A year later he rescued a couple of tiny kittens that were quickly starving to death because their mom had died. It turned out that they were FeLV+, but we made the decision to do the best for them that we could. The little girl, Temperance, died last year, but her brother, Ray, is still going strong. My son believes that the girl still visits her brother sometimes, when he begins running around the apartment like he did when they were playing. He is still lonely without her. I don't know that she's visited my son, though, but I'm sure she could.

My son said after she died that he was sure Maddie had come to escort Temperance beyond the veil. He found that comforting himself.

Thanks for the tip DianeS. Is this the site you were talking about? I googled it and found it here:

http://rainbowsbridge.com/

I'm going to bookmark the site to show my kids.

That's one. Love the music!

This is the one I usually go to:

http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/rainbowb.htm
and
http://petloss.com/

(I'm not sure how to make those a hyperlink. Sorry!)

These people also have a Candle Service of some sort every Monday night and also a place for listing Special Needs pets. It was a great help for my son when his FeLV+ girl died and I also ended up listing all three of a litter of foster kittens we had that had some sort of genetic defect.

I hope it's helpful to others!

DianeS
owned by Wilma, Angel, and Simba

Thanks Diane, those are very helpful!

>15, DianeS - I agree. I am not a religious person and I have great doubts about what, if anything, comes after 'this' but when my little Ollie died suddenly after a horrible illness, I found that the idea of the Rainbow Bridge really helped me to cope. I know its ridiculous, but the idea that he would be alone and sad after death was overpowering for me. I am still sad, but I have sort of come to terms with it. Thinking that I will see him again one day helps me. :)

I am only sort of a religious person, but I am a strong believer in reincarnation. Other than some personal experiences, the main reason for that is that Mother Nature recycles *everything*. I simply have to believe that souls are also recycled.

Possibly the most touching and cheesy (at the same time) thing I read online after 9/11 concerned animals that had gone over the Rainbow Bridge without having ever owned a person. The idea was that with the sudden deaths of so many people, many of whom probably didn't have pets, all the lost and abandoned animals went to great them. Like I said, both touching and cheesy in about equal measures! But I can't shake the image. (OK, I'm a sap and a hopeless romantic.)

DianeS
owned by Wilma, Angel, and Simba

>20, Aww, DianeS - Thinking about animals that have gone over the Rainbow Bridge without owning people is nearly making me cry! I'm a sap too, although I try to hide it - it comes out when animals are concerned.

>21, Yeah, me, too. I am, for example, a bleeding heart liberal who is mostly against the death penalty -- but when I think of someone owning and and caring for the mother of our current foster kittens, then dumping her in the local kill shelter, nearly ready for delivery. Well, I'd reserve the death penalty for people like that. Well, them and Ted Bundy. 8) And whoever it was that severely traumatized a gorgeous little foster kitten we had last year, Mocha, to the point that she was almost unadoptable.

DianeS
owned by Wilma, Angel, and Simba

>22, DianeS - I completely hear you on that one! People who hurt animals are almost beyond my comprehension.

Two weeks ago, I lost my youngest cat (about 6 years old). He had a blocked urethra and had a bad reaction to the anesthesa during surgery and passed away.

It was a real shock, doubly so since on the very elderly cats thread, I have mentioned my 3-legged bound-to-my-heart friend who is not doing well. I have been trying to prepare myself for Panda's death, but Visa's (everywhere you want to be) hit me as it was so totally unexpected.

I haven't felt his presence. I'd love to. I hate the fact that my last memory of him is in utter panic at the vet's.

But... about ten days later I went to the next town over for a meeting and visit with my kids (daughter in college there, son lives there). As usual I stopped by the Goodwill store to check out their books. I found a copy of a book called Angel Whiskers Reflections on Loving and Losing a Feline Companion by Laurel Hunt. There are some very comforting writings in this book--some I was familiar with and some are new to me.

I'd love to think it was not coincidence that made me find this book. A nudge from God and the Universe? A little push by Visa himself?

I believe there are no coincidences. You were meant to find that book. I'm so sorry for your loss streamsong. I know your pain.

Cats have 9 lives, so I suppose a ghost cat would have to be stuck in their last life?

All my cats go to heaven.

26> Some call it their 10th life - when they're ghosts or angels or waiting at the Rainbow Bridge.

I saw a cat ghost on the day my cat was dying. I say it was one of his guardian angels coming to escort him to the Rainbow Bridge.

I used to live in a house that was haunted both by a man in a checkered sweater and a black and white kitten. I actually hung a spool from a drawer handle and watched it play with it.

The man never bothered us but we'd see him looking out an upstairs window and sometimes we'd hear footsteps above us at night. My x husband would yell stop it! We're sleeping! and it would stop. Weird. I never liked going into the basement there. But I don't like basements anyway

My little black and white cat died in July 2008, at 18 years of age. Sometimes I catch sight of a small black shadow moving around the living room. Probably just a trick of the light, but who knows.......

I lost one of my cats, Mischa, last December at age 14. It was so hard because in the weeks before he died. he would lay on my chest with his paw on my neck. Sometimes I look on the bed at night to see if he's there. I still have his sister and sometimes I hear her running up and down the hall at night and like to think that she's playing with her brother.
Many years ago, My mother had a dream in which one our cats sat on her chest and patted her on the cheek with his paw. He told her that in a little while he would be leaving her. In two weeks he was dead.
I love cats (and dogs, in fact all animals) and so appreciate all of your expressions of tender feelings toward them.

I had a cat called cassie but my mum and dad had her due to moving away, I recently came back and cassie was still with them but a few days ago she went missing and last night when I went to bed, I was nodding off when suddenly felt something jump up on the bed and i saw it walk over my chest walked down the bed and back up it looked at me I gasped, it walk down the bed again I grabbed my phone shone the light but nothing was there. I was so scared I neally got in my mums bed with her and I'm 33 lol. Do you think cassie has died and she's come to say goodbye. I spoke to my mum this morning and she said cassie used to always sleep in the room that I was in. Do you thnk she will come back again or is she now at rest. Xx

Sorry for your loss, Kerian. It will take some time, but the pain should lessen. When I lost my 17-year-old Sylvia, I found it helpful to have a picture of her and a tea light candle on a living room table. Anytime I missed her, I would light a new candle and let myself talk to her or cry – just grieve. Something many of us still feel uncomfortable doing for a pet.

Emma0563 – it's hard to say if a cat would come back to just say goodbye or to hang out for a while.

And speaking of Sylvia, after she passed I thought I would see something dark slinking around the house every now and then (she was dark gray with some white). And my other cat Gabriel would sit outside the cat room (room blocked from the dogs with litter box, food, water, and a cushioned bench by a window – they hung out there a good chunk of the time) and look in, as if she was watching something in there even though nothing was. And occasionally, she would approach the food bowl slowly, stop and hiss at something I didn't see, and finally go and eat. Made me wonder.

Absolutely, there are cat ghosts!

We had one cat walk away when she felt her disease would hurt us too greatly to watch her suffer. She's been around our house for years. Her sister passed about two years ago, and I know that they met in one of our house rooms. Of the three cats we've lost, I've felt one sleeping on my back, like he used to do when I stretched out to read. (One of my present cats tried to chase him off, only to rear back and hiss at my head!)

So yes, cat ghosts are very possible.

I think they are too. I remember not long after a cat I had as a teenager passed away I felt a cat jump on my bed, walk around, and curl up. No cat was there though. I also saw cat shadows out of the corner of my eye for awhile afterward.

Now, skeptics would say that's the grieving mind playing tricks on me, but I like to think it was Puss (I didn't name her heh) saying farewell.