Help! Normal cat turned abnormal!

Hello all! I am new to this and looking for some help with my cat Grover. We adopted Grover about 18 months ago. He is a very sweet and affectionate cat. We also have 1 other cat and 2 dogs. He gets along with all of the other animals very well, as do they with him. He has begun acting strangely within the last 2 weeks. More often than not he seems very cautious when walking about the house. He'll stare at the wall, a door, stairway, as if he is watching something (that no one else can see). He will sometimes walk through a room, stop, and then cautiously walk around an unseen obstacle (usually after sniffing around whatever it is, again, we can't see it!). I have started watching my other animals to make sure they are not being overly aggressive towards him, and there is no evidence of a change in their behavior that might be pre-empting this. Also, my other animals will often watch him while he is exhibiting this behavior in much the same amazement, it seems, as my fiance and I exhibit.

I know this sounds silly, but it is almost as if he is seeing a ghost or spirit. Is there anyone else out there who has experienced this with their cats? I am becoming concerned, however he is eating, drinking, and using the litterbox with no problems. Help?!

Dawn in NJ, USA

It's a common cat thing, but still creepy and weird. I'm convinced at least some of the cats I've had are aliens, Martians, you name it, but I just figure they must think I'm pretty peculiar a lot of the time too, and don't even try to understand, just accept it!

ha, i would have to agree! It must be the cat food! :-D

I live in a 100 year old house .....and I cant tell you the times Ive seen my cats do this .......its one thing when they all look up in unison together .... and I look and nothing is there ..........but then when they start sniffing in the air ........it freaks me out ......... He may also be smelling another cat outside ....... could be anything ...... but if its a ghost ....... I sure hope its just Casper !!!!

All my cats do it, sometimes in unison, sometimes it's only one of them. Strange but cute!

Some of my cats do this too. They walk around an unseen object.

When I was a kid we had a cat that we found on Halloween. Sir Trick or Treat aka Tricker had a habit of running up from the basement at full speed, up to the second level of the house and again up to the top floor and hiding uder one of our beds. We never knew what would freak the cat out so bad. He would do it at least once a month. We would always peer into the basement but we never "saw" anything.

At my last apartment my one cat Gizmo would actually get up on her hind legs like a dog begging and peer into the kitchen from my bedroom. I always looked but never heard or saw anything that would make her look so intent.

In other words, Cats are strange

When I had Clover he was our only cat. He alerted us to something in our house. Whatever it was had him spooked! He stopped sleeping in my bedroom. If he did come in, his guard was up and he walked very slowly. Often he would approach something and it seemed like he was stalking something that wasn't there. But then...one day he flew across the room literally and ran out as fast as he could. I (in HS at the time) gathered up my blanket and pillow and parked myself on the living room sofa (my mom slept there too). The next morning the tv started turning on and off. I thought my mom was doing it but she suddenly got really startled and asked if I was doing it and said she thought there was a problem. We found the remote but it kept doing it. My mom got mad at this point, feeling somewhat threatened and ran towards the tv to unplug it. As she got closer it flickered on adn off so fast you could only see fuzz on the screen. I've never seen anything like it in my life!!!

Talk about freaked out. I have no doubt cats see things. I also have decided I've had enough of really old homes! After that incident things calmed down but it took a good couple of weeks before I could sleep back in my room. Heck it took a week just to enter my room again! Whew...its quite a memory.

First off, thanks for the posts. At least I don't feel so crazy now. Ever since I was a baby, my family has always had dogs and cats as fellow members of the family. But none this weird - or perhaps sensitive! I gave Grover some catnip last night and he seemed to mellow out a bit and became his old playful self for a while, which made me feel a lot better.

It's just very creepy when I am home alone, especially at night, and he is slinking around! I work in the mental health field, so I am just going to assume my cat is hallucinating. I can live with that! If it's a ghost, I'll never get to sleep!

Thanks to all. Solarity - you're cats are beautiful! AsecretK - I also had a Gizmo!

Dawn

animals are very aware of spirit my old cat pedro(gone over rainbow bridge) pedro would arch his back and hiss at nothing as if he was defending my daughter he would stand in front of her it frightened us to death my daughter could also see what ever it was we had her examined by a pshycologist after a referal she was only 3 at the time but pedro always was by her side protecting her we moved very soon after we couldnt stand it any more we were living in a church at the time spirits a plenty lol my daughter is 8 now and still remembers the man who she could see
just remember spirit will never harm you if you do feel it is paranormal just ask the spiit to leave and move on

is grover a rescue cat?

we adopted two cats one time and found out the people that had the litter had fed some of the kittens tabs of LSD. little Olly was one of them. he used to do things like that and had some weeing issues. poor thing is fine now but we had to put him on anti anxiety pills from the vets.