THE CAT WHO KNOCKED FOR HELP
From Duncan Hucker (2003)
One September night at about 9:30 pm all my dogs started barking due to a "knock" at the back door. My son went outside to see what was going on since living in the north end of Blaenau Ffestiniog (Wales) it's quiet at night. He found a local tomcat hitting the door with his paws. The cat then ran into the road and across towards dinas crossing, an area he never usually visits.
Seeing this as unusual we all followed him down the road to the edge of the fields where we thought we could hear our own cat Meep crying. My wife and son then proceeded to check out the fields in case she had been caught up in a snare or such like. I saw some movement back towards the end of the houses, and returned to find the aforementioned tomcat "dancing" along a gateway and making some very strange noises. I stopped to watch him and he ran off into a garden, next thing I knew he was on top of an outbuilding, tapping the front with his paw!
I called everyone over, and my son (who has the best hearing) thought he could hear a cat crying in the shed. By this time I thought I was in a Disney movie, but we called on the shed's owner and asked her to check the situation out. As soon as the door was open, a very bedraggled cat ran out and came straight to us! At this point the tom ran off, obviously happy to have sorted things out.
Timmy the tomcat is usually elusive. He was abandoned a few years ago, and isn't really a "limelight basker". Meep the rescuee seems not much the worse for wear, although she's a bit thin. She also seems to crave attention rather a lot, which makes a change as she's a bit of a loner and doesn't hang around too often usually. Where I live in Blaenau Ffestiniog she'd rather go out killing the local mouse population than stay at home and be stroked.
I replied that one of my old cats, Squeak, used to grab the bush by the front door and twang it against the door when she wanted to come it, but I'd never heard of a cat knocking and then doing the Lassie "boy fallen down old mineshaft" act in order to rescue a trapped cat.
THE CAT THAT SAVED A DROWNING LAMB
In October 2003, a cat saved a lamb from drowning in a swimming pool in Icomb, Gloucestershire. The lamb had strayed from a nearby field and fallen into the pool, but because pools are steep-sided, it couldn't escape and was in danger of becoming exhausted as it struggled to escape. Black-and-white "Puss Puss" miaowed and dashed back and forth to the pool to alert her owners to the problem.
Puss Puss had accompanied gardeners Adrian Bunton and Karen Lewis while they worked on a private garden in Icomb. Puss Puss's persistent miaowing told them something was wrong. Puss Puss was very agitated, miaowing, calling and crying and generally being an utter pest. She dashed back and forward between them and the pool until they got the hint and rescued the lamb. The lamb was returned wet but unharmed to its flock in a nearby field.