Pets That Scare People – Real Stories

We asked people in a poll, “Has your pet ever scared you?” Almost 80% said yes and about half of them say they were scared badly. They wrote several stories that we would like to share with you. Some are VERY funny. WE hope you enjoy.

Mary wrote:“This happened many years ago when I was about 14 or 15. My mom and I were alone in the house sometime in the wee hours and all of a sudden the piano began to play disjointed notes – very loud!I jumped out of bed and met my mother in the hallway. Both of our eyes were wild – who was in the house and why were they playing the piano?!We went to the living room and there was Pinadee, our cat, standing on the keys of the piano. She had obviously been running back and forth on the keyboard, playing music.We put her on the floor and went back to bed, although it was some time before our hearts were beating normally enough to go to sleep. The next morning there was a dead mouse on the floor underneath the piano!”Kim wrote:“My scare came with my dog Allis. We had gone to church one Sunday morning, and left her alone. She has a little separation anxiety but she usually is very good and doesn’t get into trouble.We had thought that we picked up everything that was food that she may get into, but my family forgot to shut a door to the bedroom where they had stored some baking supplies. Well Allis, went investigating while we were gone and found some baker’s chocolate. Now at the time she weighed about 89 pounds. When we got home we walked into the kitchen and she was acting like she was in trouble, not excited like she normally would be. She normally will put herself in a corner when she does something wrong. So we checked all over the house and finally went into the bedroom and saw an assortment of wrappers, and chocolate powder all over the place.I called our local vet immediately. We knew that it only had been maybe an hour or so since she had ingested it. The vet asked how much she had eaten and I said probably close to 16 oz. Now chocolate is very toxic to dogs, and sometimes if they consume just a little they can reach toxic levels. The vet figured that she was near toxic levels so asked us to bring her in immediately. So we packed her up and rushed to the vet.She was brought immediately in, and to the back room so they make her vomit the chocolate out. They started her on IV’s to keep her hydrated. After a few hours of sitting back there with her and absolutely panicking they said that she was right on the edge of chocolate toxicity and that if she weighed any less she probably would be in serious trouble. The veterinarian was trying to keep me relaxed by saying that because she was a chocolate lab she liked chocolate. That wasn’t helping. All I kept thinking was that I can’t lose her, she’s my little girl. We were very fortunate.She hasn’t touched chocolate since. It was very traumatic for her to be made sick to get it out of her system. We were sent home with her and told to watch her for any symptoms of her having a problem with the chocolate still in her system, but she was fine – just a little more hyper than normal, which is a symptom but not as bad as the rest. We were always told that she was over weight, and we’d been working on helping her lose some weight. But that day it was good that she weighed 89 lbs because if she weighed any less she wouldn’t be here. Since that day we’ve worked on her to get down to her ideal weight of 67 lbs.”Christi wrote:“I heard what I thought was someone in my utility room which has the back door. I got out of bed, creeping through the living room when I saw this huge shadow of what I thought was a person, coming down the hall. As I watched with my heart in my throat, my 12-pound cat appears looking very small compared to that shadow. The hall nightlight cast her shadow. WHEW!”Keri wrote:“I haven’t had my cat too long. She came to us as a kitten in February when the weather was bad and it was about to snow. So, we gave her a home and so glad we did. She’s turned out to be a great addition to our household.I would have to say the only thing thus far she has done to really scare me is when I’m napping or lying in bed engrossed in a movie, etc. and she jumps clear out of nowhere on top of me! We rarely let her in our room at night because she likes to do that or simply make me her bed. We love her dearly though and enjoy her daily antics!”Margaret wrote:“Our Papillon, Bronco, has given me the chills on several occasions. Sometimes at night when we are in the den watching TV he will growl and stare at something in the dining room. There is nothing to be seen, but I wonder if there is a presence there that he senses…it makes me somewhat unnerved and there are times when my husband isn’t home that I won’t go into that room. Ghosts??”Meghen wrote:“My cat is old but I love her to death. When she is cold she’ll go into our room and take a catnap under the covers.One day I couldn’t find her (don’t laugh she is like my daughter), so I went to my room because that’s where she goes sometimes. I sat down on the bed and felt around in the covers (she is skinny). I found her but she didn’t move. I wiggled her again – nothing. My heart was racing, tears swelling up in my eyes. Just as I was about to call my hubby….WAM!!!! She jumped up and started rubbing on me. I almost went into cardiac arrest. I’m serious.She still has those DEEP naps and I still get worried…AHHH!!!!!”Cate wrote:“One night my fiancé and I were sound asleep when all of a sudden I awoke to a loud banging noise that sounded exactly like someone hitting our door. My heart was pounding as I waited and a few seconds later the pounding happened again.Just as I turned to wake my fiancé he looked at me and put his finger to his lips indicating I should be quiet. He slowly got up and grabbed the shotgun he keeps next the bed. Just then the pounding noise sounded again exactly like someone was trying to break down our back door.As he slowly crept into the living room I sat up so I could see what was going on, my heart still pounding. Just as he got into the living room where he could see the backdoor, a car came down the hill flashing into the living room a brief light and leaving a bunch of shadows on the wall. As the shadows moved down the wall our black female cat jumped as hard as she could against the wall paneling, which proceeded to make a very loud banging just like someone trying to break in our door.My fiancé lowered his gun shaking his head and telling Izzi (our cat) just how much she had scared mommy and daddy and to stop chasing shadows. To this day we still call her the Shadow hunter and laugh about our door being ‘broken down’…”dvanilla wrote:“My cat has done weird things when she felt someone that I didn’t know was in my yard. She jumps on the end table, jumps down groaning and it scared me to death. I looked out the window and it was the light man.Same thing recently happened in the middle of the night and I find out someone in a pick up truck was fighting and yelling as they passed by my house 2:34 AM. I knew something wasn’t right about this. My cat ran, jumped on the coffee table, growled and jumped down.I’m beginning to pay close attention to her behavior as a sign when she doesn’t feel comfortable, something isn’t right.”BHL wrote:“I have cats. One liked to work out her grievances by hiding in dark rooms and then stalking the humans, jumping out, grabbing your ankle with her paws and nipping your leg. She never broke the skin, but it would scare the heck out of you when a creature came and attacked out of the dark!I have five cats now. They’ve really scared me twice. Once when they were all sitting around a corner of the basement in a little semi-circle staring at the wall. Turns out, the neighbors had mice. Also turns out, they never came into my house.The second is when one of them had stolen a pen and was playing with it in the entry way. He was rubbing it against the front door in such a way that it sounded like someone was trying to pick the lock. Took 10 minutes of creeping around with a knife in one hand and the phone in the other to figure out it was just my nutbar tabby cat and NOT a burglar.”Millie wrote:“I used to share my home with a huge (18 pound) feline. Although he was quite large, he was very agile. He was always prone to the Night Crazies. He used to jump from the night stand to the top of a chifforobe that was next to my bed. He would sort of lounge up there for a while sort of lulling you into a false sense of security. Then when you least expected it, he would jump onto the bed. Oftentimes, I was asleep or dozing–it was like a furry bowling ball hitting your bed. I had him until he was 16 years old–gosh, I still miss that cat.”dragonet2 wrote:“This was the first fall I was in my house. I live in the middle of Kansas City, in an area that a lot of outer suburbanites consider a ‘bad part of town’.The rest of my family was going to be out of town for the weekend. The folks that I work for at the Renaissance Festival come in from Colorado for the fair, so I asked them to spend the weekend with me because I was new to the house and a little skittish.Well, J and I had stayed up way too late talking, and we finally went upstairs and turned in to our various bedrooms. Just after lights went out we heard an enormous “CRASH-SLAM-THUMP” from downstairs. J and I were both back on our feet and out the door. Fortunately we sleep clothed. J, who has an ENORMOUSLY LOUD voice bellowed, ‘Get out of our house!’ As he did, a little wisp of calico fur bolted up the stairs between his legs and then on up to the third floor.As far as we could tell, Badb Catha ran downstairs, jumped into a chair that slid on the hardwood floor and crashed/dropped the halogen lamp. We hadn’t realized we needed those little rubber things under the chair legs to make them stay in place. Badb didn’t come back out again until we all were gone for the next day, I’m sure.Poor little mite. She passed away about four weeks ago, unexpectedly and as if she’d been felled by something in mid-stride. She was only 10, a year of 2000 cat. And she was currently our only cuddle-bunny and I miss her dearly.”Jean wrote:“I live in the boonies, and it’s not uncommon for mice and other small animals to try to make their way into the house in the fall. One night I went into my utility room to empty the dryer. I didn’t turn on the light, as there was enough coming in the back door from the setting sun for me to see, but this left a lot of the room in shadow. I heard a “scratch-scratch-scratch” noise, and suspected that there was some creature hiding in the room making a nest. Out loud I said, ‘I wonder what THAT is?’ At that moment, my cat Brando popped out of a cardboard box in which I was storing flower bulbs, meowing loudly in answer to my question. It scared the bejabbers out of me.”Dave wrote:“I awoke one night believing I was having a heart attack. From my dream/waking state I knew that my left arm felt heavy and numb and I had a tingling sensation in my fingertips. I felt heavy pressure in my chest as well, making it hard to breathe. When I was fully awake, I realized one of our cats was sleeping most comfortably on my outstretched left arm, cutting off my circulation. Our other cat was happily sleeping on my chest. After I calmed down, everyone got re-positioned and went back to sleep.”Jan wrote:“We rescued a little black cat that had been declawed. One night about 3:00 am, I heard a fast thump, thump, thump in the dining room. Since my husband is hard of hearing, I got up to check it out, scared to death of what I would find. I was relieved to find that the little cat was batting at the flap of an empty cardboard box that had been left turned out instead of turned in. It made a great toy, but she could have found a better time to play with it.”Lisa wrote:“I worked 2nd shift and came home to find out I had to run to the store. Everyone was fast asleep so I hopped into my car and half way there I felt something slowly creep upon my neck. I looked into my rear veiw mirror to see nothing. At this point my heart was throbbing not knowing what was behind me and no one in my household knew I was gone. I did not know what to do, thinking that my family will not discover I was gone till the next morning. Just then I heard a meow…my dang cat had crawled into the car. Now I always check my back seat!”Meyati wrote:“The Pit Bull slept through a robbery – big screen TV, Christmas presents, power tools, electronics, etc. were taken. They sat on the couch and opened the presents!! The cat kept trying to wake us up, but we thought that he wanted food. The police caught the robbers and one had seriously injured other homeowners, so we were glad that we slept-stayed in bed, while they took things. If that doesn’t scare you-nothing will.”Irene wrote:“Working in my kitchen recently I heard this gentle banging noise coming from the living room. Thinking it was something on the TV, I carried on, but so did this banging sound. Creeping into the other room, ears and eyes alert, I realized that one of my cats, 5-year-old Rusty, had jumped into an large empty cardboard box with one of her fave semi-soft balls and was busily knocking it from one end to the other. Mystery solved!”Jesse wrote:“We have 4 cats — Cosmo – a seal point Siamese, Missy – a Torty, Jenny – a small black DSH, and Buddy – a long, tall black Bombay.One day my daughter Stephanie brought some clothes to wash in a square collapsible screen laundry basket. She left it open on the family room floor and the cats were playing in it. Buddy found that he could collapse it and then root under it and walk down the hall with it over him like a V-shaped tent. He left it standing in the V-shape when he crawled out.Jenny then went under it and being real small, couldn’t pick it up on her back like Buddy did. At some point she went out the front and hooked her neck and shoulders on one of the handles. This spooked her and she ran – with the laundry basket flopping behind her. She ran across the entry way, into the dining room, up against the windows and then back down the hall into the 4th bedroom with the laundry basket flopping close behind.When she came back down the hallway, she had the other three cats chasing her trying to catch “the Thing that had Jenny”. Buddy is very quiet and only meows when my wife opens a can of tuna. But by now he was chasing her and literally howling like a Banshee.As Jenny made the 2nd pass through the dining room, I grabbed up Buddy and handed him (still howling) to my wife and chased the other 2 cats and Jenny with the laundry basket back into the Master Bath. As she came out with the laundry basket, I stepped on the end, which stopped her and allowed her to back out panting real heavily. My wife and I fell down on the floor laughing as Missy and Cosmo tackled “the Thing”.Needless to say, we now pay close attention to removing anything that has handles on it that might entangle a cat.”