[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Jack isn’t alone among the cats of the world who venture out for a lark and find themselves among the missing, with the more hopeful stories showing how cats return home to their owners even after years have passed or how owners seek unusual means to find them. The Forsloff cat Jack’s casino adventure falls right in with the best.
Recent news on the cat scene tells of a Colorado cat named Willow who was found in New York after five years of being missing, creating quite a sensation both for the cat’s wandering ways and raising speculation about how the cat managed to travel the 1800 miles between these two states. In another story, a cat owner hired a pet detective on September 2 to find a cat that became missing in the American Airlines baggage area. Both of these stories have been carried by major media, including Reuters and the Daily Beast. Those happy travelers are among the numbers of pets that end up as stowaways on airplanes, boats, trucks, and other modes of transportation, in that “curiosity killed the cat” fashion those friends of felines use to excuse the behavior.
Now Jack Dandy Forsloff’s story hasn’t been reported to date. But the recent good news about Willow revealed just how special cats are. Jack made his way down a center hallway at the Longhorn Super 8 Casino in Las Vegas, landing right on the lap of a gambler, proving once again to his owners that Jack is as much a person as a cat after all.
[caption id="attachment_9453" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Longhorn Casino in Las Vegas - Forsloff photo"]
[/caption]On a recent trip across the country from Louisiana to Oregon. Jack, and his traveling cat companion Mandy, had been doing what most cats do when caged in cars for hours: sleeping the days away. But both of them look for opportunities to escape confinement as soon as they are able to run around in a room.
Jack, now the Dandy of the family and hence the name, was adopted from a veterinary clinic in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He had been found by a barking dog as the last of a litter under a vacant house. The mother and all other kittens were dead. Jack layed murmuring near death until neighbors, after following the dog’s continuing alerts, found the small kitten and took it to the nearest clinic where it was nursed to health over the next six weeks.
Having no mother cat, Jack learned his loving, almost human ways, from the veterinarian’s wife who reported having fed him from a bottle and who even paced the floor with him during those early days when Jack was frightened and very ill. By the time the Forsloff family arrived to pick up Mandy, their four-year-old tabby who had been bunking at the veterinary clinic while her family was on a short trip, Jack was running around the office hallways, at home in a world of people coming and going and greeting the playful creature who instantly related to strangers as if they were all just cat friends.
It was Jack at his finest the veterinarian related would fit very well with the Forsloffs, Jack being an orange-colored tabby who looked very much like a brother to Mandy and who embraced the family with a kiss on the lips for them all. That human embrace came from weeks of close love and attention that Jack adopted as his own way of showing affection. He also learned other behaviors that people maintain are as human-like as any other cat they have met. He sleeps on his back for hours, sits attentively when given commands, and falls asleep when rocked with a lullaby, even now that he is two years old.
So it wasn’t surprising when Jack made his move, just as the rest of the family did not see him at the back corner near the door to the room when it was opened to get luggage that had been left just outside for a moment. Those moments were all Jack needed to dart down the long hallway into the casino and into the lap of a surprised customer sitting at a slot machine waiting to make the next play.
Now Jack knows just how to entice strangers using those same loving ways he has learned, so as the Forsloffs watched and coaxed from the sidelines, Jack was making the right moves. Both of Jack’s arms swung up on the stranger’s shoulders for a resounding kiss on the mouth. As the dish of tokens on the stranger’s lap hit the floor, Jack was on all fours, looking for some that had fallen all around, just waiting for the fortunate feline to snatch one up and join the gambling group. But the foray was interrupted by the Forsloff folk instead, as Jack left the casino, not one bit richer, but perhaps wiser for his adventure of the day.
[caption id="attachment_9452" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Super 8 Longhorn Casino, Las Vegas - Forsloff photo"]
[/caption]Every day a cat is listed as lost somewhere in the world, with the hopeful wishing for a happy return. Whether it’s a news story prompted by the Lost and Found departments of animal care agencies or a flyer on a post, finding a lost pet is important. It’s especially important to find one that looks like a cat but behaves like a person instead, since who knows how much a clever cat might win if not caught early on at a gambling table in Atlantic City after using his winnings in Vegas to get there.
