Here’s a roundup of amusing cat stories from the past few days:
Pilot Lands After Berserk Cat Gets Into Cockpit
The captain of a Qatar-bound passenger flight was forced to return to Khartoum International Airport in Sudan — his takeoff point — after a berserk cat got into the cockpit and began attacking him, according to news reports.
The Wednesday flight was headed to Doha, Qatar’s capital, and was in the air for about an hour before the cat forced the emergency landing. Flight crew weren’t able to subdue the cat, who likely slipped onto the plane undetected the night before when it was stored in a hangar, according to airline authorities.
The cat-jacking was not the first incident of its kind, Euro Weekly News noted. In perhaps the most well-known incident in 2004, a cat named Gin escaped its carrier mid-flight and snuck into the cockpit while stewardesses were passing meals to the pilots. Gin attacked the captain and co-pilot, forcing them to return to Brussels. Also in 2004, a cat breached the cockpit of a plane bound for Bangladesh and caused havoc. While the plane arrived at its destination without any problems, it took the flight staff another two hours after landing to trap the frightened furball.
Earlier this month, a cat snuck onto a grounded El Al jet at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. On Feb. 21, maintenance staff at the airport discovered the relaxed feline “sunning himself” on the dash after using the pilot and co-pilot seats as his personal scratchers.
The cute shop cats of Cleveland
Cleveland.com’s Anne Nickoloff has a nice write-up about the shop cats of Cleveland who occupy bookstores, record shops, a brewery, a hardware store and a comic book shop, among other businesses. Some of the shop cats serve part-time as mousers, but most of them are really mascots and friendly faces that keep regulars coming back.
Among them is Saaz the cat, who calls The Cleveland Brew Shop home.
“She’s part-pet, part-employee because we have a lot of malted barley here, and so often if you don’t have a deterrent, it can attract rodents,” Brew Shop owner Darren Cross told Nickoloff. “It’s actually true – the pheromones of the cat will eventually get around the store and mice can detect those pheromones and they’ll stay away.”
“I’d recommend having a cat for any store. People walk into our store just to pet the cat… She comes to the door when people walk in, she’s not shy like you would expect a cat to be, so it works out well.”
Cat is reunited with owner after 15 years apart
While this is a nice story, it’s also a cautionary tale about allowing your cats outside. Along from the anguish of losing a cat, I imagine the worst part is not knowing what happened to the little one.
A Los Angeles man named Charles adopted Brandy when she was just two months old and had her for only a short time before she disappeared. Charles told the Associated Press he searched for her and put up signs, but after his efforts proved fruitless he guessed coyotes may have gotten to the young cat.
“I wanted her back because when I adopted her I made a moral obligation to take care of her for her life,” he said.
On Sunday he received a call from a Los Angeles area shelter who had picked up Brandy and scanned her microchip. The long-lost cat was skinny and malnourished, but “seemed content” and was purring.
“I did break down and cry because I thought about all of the years I lost from her,” Charles told AP.
Pain In The Bud 