The Night My Cat Almost Killed Me—and My Dog Saved My Life

This is a story about animal intelligence—and about how animal intelligence may have saved my life. But, more importantly, it is about the intelligence we share with animals: a physical knowing, the kind of knowing that lets an animal stop dead in its tracks when there is danger and, if we are in touch with our bodies, might let us do the same.

This story involves me and my dog, Basil, (pronounced like a British name, not like the herb) a medium-haired Collie-Labrador mix, and how many years ago he became the cop on the neighborhood cat fight beat. I have to give you some background so you can understand why he was stopping the neighborhood cat fights, so stay with me…

The story

It was about 2 or 3 in the morning in a sprawling, distant, suburb of Denver. It was summer. It would have been quiet—the scrubby, rolling hills of a cattle ranch began about fifty yards south and stretched for miles—except for the howls and screeches of a cat fight going on just outside my house.

Basil and I woke up, Basil whining and excited, ready to rush outside and stop the fight. I was there because my job was simply to open the front door and let Basil bolt like a streak toward the half dozen or so cats we would easily find by all the noise they were making.

We had adopted a kitten about a year before. I was assured by the adoption organization that he would be an indoor cat. He, however, never agreed to that. I tried everything—spray bottles filled with water at every door, inside and out, with instructions for visitors to spray the cat that would be charging the door. He jumped out a second floor window by pushing out the screen and launching himself into a stainless steel dog dish on the deck below, making a tremendous racket. I had a special cage made: large, comfy, useless, because he howled all night.

I gave up.

The kitten becomes a cat—an outdoor cat

By the end of his kittenhood he went to the vet often, being the brunt of the neighborhood cat fights. Now he was the boss of the neighborhood. Part Russian Blue, big, strong, he even somehow refused to allow a name to stick and we simply called him The Cat.

When he was little, I protected him from Basil. Taking advantage of this, he figured out how to hide in the front closet and wait until Basil walked by, then launch himself at Basil, scaring the bejeebers out of him. In response, Basil may have hated him, but I ran a tight ship and would not allow retaliation from Basil. Basil, who had never cared one way or another about cats, turned all his unexpressed hatred toward other cats. When a cat fight started—always in those wee hours—Basil streaked out of the house and dove right into the middle of it, scattering cats everywhere. The Cat, accompanied by his larger friend, would walk home, his tail held high, the end bent in a flag of triumph.

The neighbor makes my children cry

Basil loved this job. The job started because I was trying to prevent injuries. The Cat, as I mentioned, was no longer the brunt of these fights but the former bully now was. A big orange tom, he was getting injured on a regular basis, with many trips to the vet. The man of the cat’s household told my children he would kill The Cat if he had to take their cat to the vet one more time. My children came home crying. I had to find a solution. Unable to think of anything else, Basil and I became keepers of the neighborhood peace.

Basil refuses to go outside

Anyway, the night in question began the same as all of these summer nights. Howls and screeches followed by Basil running into my room, whining, wagging his tail, making small leaps forward, stopping, his claws digging into the carpet, then turning to make sure I followed. I get out of bed and I hurry downstairs to get there ahead of him. One night, Basil was so eager to get outside, he ran into the door before I could open it. ?

On this night, I open the front door, and Basil doesn’t move. Used to his usual hurry, I am confused—I am also half asleep—and I nudge him with my knee. Nothing. He doesn’t even look at me. He stands stock still, staring out at the night.

The cats are fighting around a light pole that is directly across the street, maybe 20 yards away. I nudge Basil again and again he doesn’t move. I look out at what he, apparently, is looking at. I see nothing different from any other night. And then it happens: lightning strikes the light pole. With unearthly howls and screams the cats scatter in the blue light. The Cat, however, steps out of the fray, crosses the street, and slips through the front door, his work done for the night. I look down at Basil, shaken to my core. I pet him, thank him profusely, and we all go back to bed.

Intuition can show up as body level intelligence

There are stories of animals seeking higher ground before an earthquake or flood. Rupert Sheldrake wrote the book, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, about, well, dogs that know when their owners are coming home.

There are stories of people doing inexplicable things, also, only to find later that they avoided disaster. The intuition is not rational. Just as there was no explanation for Basil’s refusal to go outside that night—at least from my perspective—there are no ready explanations for actions that we take that turn out to be either mildly or greatly valuable. They can only be determined to be useful after the fact.

You have to know what you are doing. Really??

Actions based on intuition can only be accounted for—and accounted as valuable—by their subsequent results. Once we learn to pay attention to the sequence—feel unable to move forward, don’t move forward, avoid disaster—we can recognize these patterns in our lives. We can almost say that we have to get over our own arrogance, the idea that in order for something valuable to happen, we have to knowingly initiate the action that produced it. We have to accept that we can take action—or, the opposite, refuse to take action—and benefit from it without having any idea in the moment that our decision could actually be useful.?

How do you—how do I—access that body-level, animal, intelligence?

I teach intuition—yes, it can be taught and it can be learned and developed—by using three prompts. The first accesses that physical intelligence. It is:

What do I have energy for?

Let’s say you are at your office and you are wondering whether to stop at the dry cleaners or the grocery store or skip both and go straight home. Use this question: what do I have energy for? Notice if you feel tired when you think of going to the grocery store but you have energy for going to the dry cleaners. Then base your decision on that feeling of energy. In other words, begin using this question when the task is optional.

Over time, you might ask the question even when the task is not optional. Notice what you feel and then notice what happens. Using this question in both optional and non-optional situations, and noticing the outcome, you will discover that your level of energy is actually somehow tied to the outcome; and is therefore tied to your intuition.

Treat your body as if it has its own intelligence

Using the question, what do I have energy for, accesses the body’s intelligence. Respecting this intelligence is a way of acknowledging the beast that lies below your brain—a beast that may have a way of knowing without knowing—and may, some day, keep you from being struck by lightning