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Cats - gotta love 'em.

One of ours figured out how to get himself a drink from the Hinckley-Schmidt water dispenser. He would always run up whenever we'd use it, and reach up to get the last few drops that would fall. We watched him paw at the little spigot handle over a couple of weeks. He first pulled it down with his teeth, and then figured out how to pull it down with his paw.

Another cat is especially fond of the electric cat fountain we have. We usually turn it off if we are going to be out of the house. For the last couple of weeks, we come home to find that he has pulled to top off the fountain to get to the water reservoir. He likes his fountain so much he would rather drink the water from it even when it is turned off, than from the bowl of water that we keep in the kitchen.

Clever little buggers.

Snowshoes (ours was a rescue, nevertheless) have an affinity for water -- they love to watch it, play in it, stick their paws in it and bathe, etc. When I'd put the big water bottle on the cooler, he'd come running, just to hear the glub-glub-glub of the H2O pouring and watch the bubbles in the bottle. He also had a few falls into the bathtub (while my wife was in it!).

I thought the solution for all this was the electric drinking fountain. And he loved it. In fact, he loved it too much. He'd stick his head under the stream and let it pour down on his noggin (and the floor). You could hear the water splattering two rooms away. I felt badly, taking him back to the primitive bowl o' water.

We lost him to a saddle thrombosis a few years back, and I still miss him terribly, every day. It was an unusually strong cross-species bond.

I knew nothing about this horrible problem until it happened to our cat He was only 2 and a half. He was a rescue with ragdoll features, but short fur. Absolutely fine the night before. Paralyzed hindquarters the next morning - I thought he had must have had a spinal cord tumor that was pressing on the nerves to the back legs. Euthanized about an hour later, by the vet who had rescued him. We were all devastated. As a result of this experience, I learned that ragdolls have a higher incidence of this killer condition. Maybe snowshoes do, too. The breeds look a lot alike except for the fur length. Maybe our guy was a snowshoe. We had his brother, too, who was a black-and-white tabby. Didn't look a thing alike. He was with us 8 more years. Another great cat.

This happened in 2004. I have tears in my eyes as I am typing this. I'm so sorry about your kitty.

There's something about blue-eyed cats. Almost like there is a human deep inside, looking out at you thru those gorgeous peepers.

* She prefers to prowl in the dark, or...

* She just wants to get some peaceful sleep?

Would be hell to have to put paw guards on all of one's light switches!......

who learned to turn lights on. He didn't like being in the dark so if he was left in a dark room by himself he'd turn on the the lights by pushing the switch (this was back in the '30s when light switches were push buttons). Drove my grandfather nuts because the dog was running up their electric bill.

The heavy one. There was a chair that sat near the door and if she climbed up on the back, she could reach the door knob. She never could get enough of a grip on it to actually turn it but she tried many times. I swear when she said Meow we often heard it as “Me Out!”

Another cat we had would jump up to the kitchen sink and wait for us to turn on the faucet very lightly — a dribble. She turned her head sideways and drank that way. I think she preferred drinking from the faucet to her bowl kept next to her food. I miss my kitties.....

Our old house had equally old doors with oval-style doorknobs. He could jump up to the knob and grab on to it and use his weight to turn it, then ride it in to the room. That critter was amazing!

They'd come home on winter days and find the cat warm and purring on the bed.

One of my former cats learned how to open child-proof latches on my daughter's dresser drawers. She liked to take out those fuzzy elastic pony tail holders and play with them!

You could train it, I suppose, but cats have the capacity to figure out door latches, knobs, cupboard handles, toilet handles, switches, etc., etc. merely by observation.

Fortunately his little paws can't grasp them tightly enough to turn them, but he tries. If I had lever-type door handles he'd be everywhere.

I have one DLH and the meezers lock her in the bathroom. Brats!

You have to be cautious around them, you never know what they might pick up on and try out!