Ranjini Shankar

Generally my cat and my son have a one-way relationship. My son tries to love the cat (a little too roughly) and the cat escapes his grasp and goes and sits up high in the cat tree while glowering. I try to run interference in case one day my cat loses patience but so far I had been in luck and my cat was relatively passive.

My son came down with the flu and had the hardest time falling asleep because he couldn’t breathe and would wake up crying every half hour. My husband and I were exhausted and cranky and slowly losing our minds. One day as I tried to put him down for a nap on our bed our cat jumped up too. Not wanting to deal with another fur tussle with my son I tried to kick him off. He just sat there resisting all my attempts to shove him off. My son sat up and wrapped his arms around my cat and instead of running off like he normally does, he lay flat and curled his tail around my son. Thanks to the combination of warmth and purring, my son was asleep in 30 seconds. My cat stayed in that position for two hours as my son slept for the first time in days.

It may not seem like such a huge deal to most but I know that this tired mom was eternally grateful to the love my cat showed my son.

Claire Germond

I have 2 stories.

1. I had had a bad stomach ache for two days. I thought it was something I ate. It was getting worse. My cat, Cordelia, started kneading my stomach. She wouldn’t stop.

It dawned on me – there is something really wrong with my stomach and she knows it. I went to the emergency room.

I had a burst appendix and they operated on me immediately!

2. Once I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Then I washed my hands, but being half asleep, I left the water on and the basin plugged up. I went back to bed. Later my cat, Cordelia, woke me up by licking my face. She was just frantic. I pushed her away. She ran in the direction of the bathroom. Then she started licking my face again. This went on for a while. Finally I got up and went into the bathroom. The basin was about to overflow.

Cordelia had rescued me, and the house, from a flood.

Here is Cordelia, my genius cat.

Kristin Winkler Snow

One night, I’d left the screen door open in my bedroom so the cats could go in and out at will. The kids and I were eating take-out Chinese food in the dining room. Suddenly, Sally, our calico, started growling and stalking towards my bedroom. I followed her and found two large racoons had entered my room. Sally puffed up to about three times her normal size and moved toward them, all the while vocalizing with a low, menacing growl. The racoons, who apparently thought they were going out for Chinese food, backed out and ran.

Here’s Sally, THE WATCH CAT (and our protector), in a more relaxed moment.

via Quora