Pet Stories: In Your Own Words

Princess is a flame point Himalayan who felt that she was truly regal and detested being part of the harem as my cattery population started to grow in my quest for a top show winner in the cat show circuit. Consequently, she was allowed to live in the house with us but was confined to the kitchen/dining room area in order to limit the amount of cat hair floating about the house.

One day, while doing the weekly wash, I caught sight of Princess running down the hallway and wondered how she had gotten out of the kitchen. Giving a quick chase, I found the door to the kitchen closed and my regal Princess fast asleep on one of the dining room chairs. This strange, unexplainable occurrence repeatedly happened for a period of 3 months leading me to question my sanity and needing verification, I asked my husband if he had noticed anything strange in the house. Not ever having shared my own experiences with him, he told me that he kept seeing our Princess running down the hallway and as I had, found the door to the kitchen closed and the regal one fast asleep on the chair. Feeling comforted that I wasn't losing my mind, I tried to find a reason for the occurrences.

A few months later, I was awaken in the middle of the night by my husband's shouts of "Fire!" Our bed was encircled in flames, later determined to be caused by a faulty electric blanket. After calling 911, we managed to remove all of our cats in the cattery to safety, but in the chaos, completely forgot about Princess who slept in the kitchen area. Hours later, in the darkness of a burned out house, I re-entered the house with a heavy heart expecting to find the body of my precious Princess and to my amazement, found her still asleep on her chair which had been protected by the heavy tablecloth that was draped over her chair. While the heat of the fire had melted several appliances in the kitchen, Princess was unhurt and even more unbelievable were two perfectly undamaged 12 inch candles still standing in the middle of the table, directly above the chair upon which Princess slept.

While my husband was unwilling to disclose this to the authorities, he told me that he was awakened that night of the fire by Princess. Princess still lives with us and is now 17 years old.