Furry thief!

[exlibris]

Whisper is our lovely female tabby kitten and looks a lot like my previous cat Twitch. We had Twitch 16 years, so sometimes Whisper can be a painful reminder as they are extremely similar. However, as time goes on, you can see they she is NOT Twitch in personality, she is her own cat. However, I have noticed a thing they have in common - cotton bud theft! Every morning I see her sneaking about my partner's computer desk looking for cotton bud that have missed the bin (oddly she is disinterested in the box of clean ones). Once found, she heads off with it to heaven knows where, walking as shiftily as Flash Harry. I don't know if this is a female thing, or a tabby thing, or if I'm just reading too much into it.
There was a one off deviation to Twitch's behaviour - my partner's Gran cat-sat them for us once, and she stole one of her long Xmas candles! It still bares the teeth marks.

[Mollycat]

Utterly charming. My old Bobby had me in stitches one day when he stole one Marshmallow from the packet. He very carefully chose a white one and carried it as gently as a newborn kitten into a corner where he slowly ate his stolen prize. Molly sneaked into my friend's handbag while she was sleeping and helped herself to a drinking straw, which she still has and plays with 3 years later! Funny animals.

[Ruth B]

I've know a few thieves in my time with cats, but they have normally been food orientated. Tiggy my avatar cat, once brought me a half cooked chicken drumstick, probably from someone's barbecue, and from the way she was meowing and looking from it to me, she was obviously wanting me to finish cooking it for her, needless to say it went in the bin.

The first cat we had when I was a child wasn't against helping himself to things. One time my mother had left 6 fish cakes out to defrost on the side, with never a thought about Rusty, she came to cook them only to find he had taken a bite out of each one, he obviously didn't like fish cake, but had to make sure they were all the same. Several years later my Grandmother who lived with us, left a couple of fish cakes out to defrost, and Rusty still didn't like them.

Fangs was perhaps the ultimate food thief. One time my Mother had done my Father a salad for his lunch and covered it with cling film and left it on the side for him while she went to work. Apparently he found it at lunch time with a single cut in the cling film and all the ham missing. Another time we were having guests around and my Mother had made prawn coctails up and left them on the side with a towel over to protect them. When she went to serve up she lifted the towel only to find every prawn that wasn't covered in sauce had gone, she quickly defrosted a few more and never said a word to the visitors.

Then there was Shelly, a tortie that we had adopted from a rescue, it wasn't the food she was after it was the plastic. The pack of garden name tags complete with pen that she returned home with was quite useful, the pack of sausages that she had swiped from some where we didn't risk and went in the bin.

[Mollycat]

At the risk of sounding like a spoilt brat, I do love food thieving stories, because I have absolutely nothing to add to them. Unless you count the beetroot 40 years ago or the above infamous marshmallow. My cats can be so trusted that I can (and have, several times) forgotten delicious roast meats on the kitchen counter overnight and found them in the morning untouched. They beg from ground level when I'm preparing and from the window sill behind me when I'm eating, and never go walkabout on the surfaces. Plates left on the table are usually ignored but the odd temptation isn't a problem.

They just aren't naughty, and it's so disappointing. They wouldn't even touch their christmas catnip toys until I took them off the tree and gave them properly.

[Kay]

I've probably told this story before, but I had a redpoint Siamese who was a real thief

I once spotted her through the kitchen window on my neighbour's kitchen table tucking into a cooked chicken - and no, I didn't confess

a worse event was when she came home with a dead budgie in her mouth - I had horrible visions of an old lady, empty cage in hand, wandering the neighbourhood for weeks calling for Joey or Sparky or whoever

I didn't confess then either

[Mollycat]

Oh I wish your neighbour was on this forum

[booktigger]

One of my neighbours cats (black and white male) loves used cotton buds. There might be something in the tabby thing though, a friend adopted a tabby and white male from me who hoards loads under her sofa, including her inhaler once! Might still have a pic of one of them! Lucy's are all food orientated I think, I'm still not sure how Chanel got one of Lucy's toys up the stairs, it apparently has an 8ft long ribbon, plus a star, bit of elastic and the stick - in fact, here's a link!

https://thecatgallery.co.uk/collections ... lar-teaser

[Ruth B]

I didn't mention Saturn in my tales, he is a cat that will try his paw at anything and if caught just gives you the looks that says 'yeah, and'. I dare not leave anything out where he can get at it, I even learnt to wash my hands at the sink while preparing sandwiches while watching over my shoulder he is quite happy to jump on the side while my back is turned just in hope of getting some ham or whatever. We don't have a dishwasher so a day's washing up is placed in the bowl and then all done at once, we now have to make sure hat all plates are placed in the bowl dirty side down, otherwise he would be up there licking them clean, and while if he is about we normally let him clean the meal plates off, I don't want him having a go at my knives, i firmly believe that a knife should be sharp so not something for a cat to lick.

His worst offence has to be when he managed to break a plate while i was still eating. We normally eat in the sitting room with the plates on bean bag trays. I had done a full roast pork dinner and was just finishing off, and Saturn was getting impatient with me taking too long. He reared up to get his front paws on the tray to see if he could get anything, this pulled the tray off balance tilting it in his direction, I grabbed the tray to hold it down, but the plate had momentum and was past the point of no return and did a beautiful somersault in the air and came crashing down on the lounge floor, which fortunately is laminated, the plate shattered and there was the remnants of the roast dinner spread all over. Saturn quickly got picked up and put in the porch (or kitycatraz as it is sometimes known), as much to stop him trying to help himself and hurt himself, trying to lick up pork and gravy around the splinters of plate.

It doesn't matter what they do, you can never be angry with them for long.

[Mollycat]

Ok, ok, it's time for the Rupert story ...

Once upon a time, my aunt had a chocolate Burmese boy named ... Rupert. She lived in a very nice house with a very nice Georgian front door that she didn't want to ruin, so she put a cat flap in the window above it and because the cats couldn't jump that high she made shelf steps all the way up the wall outside and all the way down again the other side. And her house was at the top of a big hill with an awesome view so her living room wasn't on the ground floor, it wasn't on the first floor, but it was on the second floor, so everyone could be awed at the awesome view.

And one morning my aunt got up to go to work (she was a veterinary surgeon) and went to her kitchen which was on the top floor with the living room, and she noticed a smallfurry animal that wasn't Rupert and indeed wasn't hers at all! And it went, Weeeeeeeek, Weeeeeeeeek, and it was a Guinea Pig. And just as she was wondering wat on earth a Guinea Pig was doing in er kitchen, she noticed another ... and another ... and another ...... and in all there were six! So little Burmese Rupert, in one night, brought in SIX LIVE Guinea Pigs all the way up the steps and in through the cat flap and down the other side and up 2 flights of stairs. If I remember right one died of fright and I have no idea how she got them all home to their rightful owner/s.

[alanc]

As a kitten, before she learnt the joys of mousing, my Tilly brought in quite a few odd things, including a child's headband with a pair of fake rabbit ears. No idea where she found that!