Dog Misses Feline Best Friend, Retrieves Cat From Grave
Oscar, an 18-month-old Lancashire Heeler, missed his best friend so much that he dug up the late cat’s grave and brought the body back into the house to be reunited with him.
The dog saw his owner dig a grave in the garden for Arthur, the 17-year-old family cat, and put him in the hole.
When Oscar’s owners woke up the next morning, they found Oscar curled up next to Arthur’s body in his bed.
Oscar and Arthur were the best of friends and were inseparable, and Arthur, who was a larger cat, even used to help Oscar onto the sofa.
Oscar’s owners said, “He had managed to climb out through the cat flap in the night, obviously with the intent to get Arthur back. Bearing in mind that Arthur was a huge cat, Oscar must have used all the strength he could muster. Then he pulled him into the basket and went to sleep next to him. Arthur’s coat was gleaming white. Oscar had obviously licked him clean. It must have taken him nearly all night.â€
Source: The Times
Photo: Manchester Evening News
January 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
That, folks, is true love. Bless his little heart. I wonder if Arthur will be cremated now . . . Oscar, I’m so sorry that you lost your best friend. Maybe you can have another cat someday.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:31 am
That is one of the most incredible animal stories I’ve ever read! My sentiments exactly, catmom5 …Bless his little heart.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I read somewhere that his family got him a kitten named Limpet…
January 12th, 2008 at 11:32 am
One of the most moving animal stories I’ve ever read. No one should ever doubt how much animals can feel.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Sweet lonely little Oscar. How loyal he was to Arthur. He did not want to leave him cold in the ground. I hope he loves his new cat and is happy from now on.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
This story made my 13yr old son walk away from the computer wiping his eyes….
January 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Ditto. All of the above. So happy the owners got another kitty.
January 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Wow, what an incredible love story !
And who said Cats and Dogs didn’t get along.
I’ve always known there was a hidden love between them and this proves it.
Thankyou for sharing your story!
Cheryl
www.purplecircle4pets.com
January 12th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
All I can say, is WOW.
January 12th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I second the ‘WOW’. It is so hard to deal with the grief of pet(s) left behind when you lose one. This would have blown me away. I’m very glad they were able to add another cat to the family. Hopefully she will help Oscar heal from his loss.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Dogs seem to attach to their companions more than cats do. Our Maltese, Nikki, waited by the door where her cat companion always came in at night for more than two weeks after Jinx, “her cat” since she was a three month old puppy, died. There was no doubt in our minds that she was waiting for her buddy and missed her. When we lost Nikki to SCC of the mouth last year, only our oldest eight year old cat seemed to really notice, and then it was just to check where Nikki’s day bed had been a few times.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:42 am
That really touches my heartstrings. That poor, precious baby missed his companion dearly. Our furry babies feel pain and loss as we do, and if you have pets long enough, and one goes to the Rainbow Bridge, you will surely notice the pet’s pain and loss.
I really hope that the new kitty will help Oscar heal as well.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:02 am
We fostered a 9 week old female Beagle mutt for three weeks. Our then 6 year old male terrier mutt was resenting the pup because she decided to take over his bed, sofa, toys, food and snacks. He growled but never hurt her. Her playfulness and sweet innocence won him over. He wandered aimlessly about the house missing her for a couple of weeks after she left for her permanent home.
Now we are fostering a two year old Border Collier mix. He is a playful, active and chewing madness. Our terrier doesn’t even care for him :-( It must be the male’s territorial thing.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:31 am
OMG. This story breaks my heart. Poor dog. I don’t know how some people (not the people here, of course) can doubt that animals have feelings. The dog probably really didn’t understand why the family was putting the cat in the ground, maybe he thought he could bring him back to life by cleaning him.
What a sweet and special dog with such a dear heart.
I’m glad the family got a kitten. A new love never takes the place of the old, but it does help ease the pain.
:(
Stefani
January 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
That one of the most poignant stories I have ever read.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
That was just so very sad. While I do also hope that they got this pup a new kitty friend, did anyone happen to notice the supposed name of the kitten, from the above post….”limpet?” Limp-pet? I think that was unnecessary.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Aww…that’s so sad. We had a rottweiler who was always extremely maternal. She gave birth to two still born pups which we buried in our barnyard. She dug them up twice before we had to have them cremated. It was just heartbreaking. I hope Oscar is able to form another close bond with his new kitten.
By the way…a friend of mine has a dog named Limpet…as in the movie “The Incredible Mr. Limpet”.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....162659.ece
The kitten’s name is for real. Hopefully, Oscar will find a new bestfriend in his kitten.
What a touching story. Oscar licked his friend clean too. Love and compassion from a little dog.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
So what if a human did this?
January 17th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
This was so very touching .. poor little guy :[
Cats also grieve … we had taken in a family of feral cats.
The mother “Nina”, son “Tio” and Tio’s sister’s kitten, “Nigel”.
When Nina died we put her in a little box in the garage
until morning when we took her to be cremated.
When we returned, we left her collar on a shelf in the garage.
Later that evening I found Tio had taken the collar and put it in his bed,
curled up with it. He had the saddest look on his face.
I slipped the collar out from underneath him and put it away, high on a shelf.
The next day I found it in his bed again … :[
Tio died within a few weeks. I believe he missed his Mom and his heart
could not recover.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Oh my goodness i cried so much on this one-we can so relate to this story and the love between animals who live in our home-our ferret Furrie died Nov 17th 2007-our cats have seemed so lost without her-they sleep with her toys and were climbing in her cage to sleep-finally had to close up the cage so they couldnt get in-we have 2 small chihuahuas and one of our cats thinks she is their mother-they will go up to her and she cleans them they sleep with her too-my heart goes out to that little dogs owners and i hope the new kitty will bond with the dog and they become best of friends as well -getting a new “family member” does sometimes help the healing process -it will never replace the one you lost but it will help-God Bless you to the family on your loss and i hope your babies live a long and happy life with you-animals are so smart and loving-too bad more humans cant be that way too-course i know there are so many good people out there but that remark was for the bad ones who treat people and animals bad!
January 26th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Pooor baby!!!! Ohh geeezzz…. I am sure that the owner freaked… but the poor dog just wanted his buddy!!
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
February 7th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I had two Poodles at one point of my life when I was younger. (We had ALL kinds of Animals at ALL TIMES)
Sugar Pop had to be put down (old age)
Shirley Temple Black would howl at the top of the stairs hrs. on end. for a week. (Neither one had never done that!!)
After a while had past, I let Shirley out side with out a leash, which I did with both of them all the time,in the yard.
Shirley NEVER came back, after weeks of looking for her, calling places and putting posters up and offering rewards
We stopped, Shirley was gone. Looking for Sugar.
and then went off and died some where.
So, this story had me IN TEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BUT AM SURE THAT THE DOG AND KITTEN WILL MAKE A SPECIAL BOND BETWEEN THE 2 OF THEM, AND THAT THE DOG WILL TELL THE KITTEN EVERYTHING ABOUT THE CAT!!!!!!!!
February 11th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
If I were the owner of these amazing animals, I don’t know if I would ever fully recover from coming downstairs and facing that sight. So beautiful yet so heartbreaking, I wept for 10 minutes reading this. Oscar looks so sad in that pic, too!
June 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Humans can learn lessons from animals about caring for each other and true love.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:18 am
The loss that this little dog felt was heart-breaking, but there was also an invaluable lesson for all of us animal companions to remember. I believe and have learned from experiance, when our animal companions who are also companions to other animals in the family have died, it is really important for us to ritualize that loss and final resting place for the other animals to come to peace with their loss. Unless we let them spend time with the body and take their time to say their good-byes they can’t accept the loss and so the digging up of the body or the leaving home to find their companion is really quite appropriate. I hope this insight helps.