Students name, claim gray cat; feline wanders campus
Mary Petrides
Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: News
A feline celebrity has been skulking around campus.
Known as Carl the Campus Cat, Jeremy, Oscar and Shoes, the four-legged furball was first sighted early last semester, said Erin Risch, a senior and self-proclaimed expert on the cat.
The cat appears unexpectedly and leaves without notice.
"I think he might be like Aslan," Risch said. "You just meet him - you can't summon him."
Sophomore Seth Strickland calls the cat an "attention whore." It follows someone, then turns and follows someone else, he said.
"[It] likes people," freshman Catherine Shilka said. "Lets everybody pet him."
Risch said her visits with the cat are generally brief.
"Usually we just cuddle for a little bit then go our separate ways," Risch said.
"He's a cat, but he's as affectionate as a dog," she said.
The cat wears no collar.
"It's small. Short hair. Gray. Not very distinct markings. It might be a bit of a tabby coat, but it's more of a monarch gray," Shilka said.
Risch and Strickland both said the cat has followed them to their respective West Street apartments.
"He just kind of showed up," Strickland said.
Freshman Catherine Shilka said she saw the cat on top of the Mauck Hall sign.
"It was meowing like crazy," she said. She said she and a friend figured someone had put the cat on the sign - evidently it didn't want to be there. They lifted the cat to the ground, petted it for a short while before the cat darted away.
"I don't think he wanted to be near the sign anymore," Shilka said.
Junior Allison Weimar said she woke up one morning surprised to find the cat in her bed.
Weimar lives in the basement of Mauck and her window was broken and left open. She said she and her roommate joked about naming it Shoes, making a litter box from a shoebox and leaving the box in the closet.
They never planned to keep the cat and it soon found its way back outside, but Weimar says she leaves dishes of milk outside when she sees it.
Known as Carl the Campus Cat, Jeremy, Oscar and Shoes, the four-legged furball was first sighted early last semester, said Erin Risch, a senior and self-proclaimed expert on the cat.
The cat appears unexpectedly and leaves without notice.
"I think he might be like Aslan," Risch said. "You just meet him - you can't summon him."
Sophomore Seth Strickland calls the cat an "attention whore." It follows someone, then turns and follows someone else, he said.
"[It] likes people," freshman Catherine Shilka said. "Lets everybody pet him."
Risch said her visits with the cat are generally brief.
"Usually we just cuddle for a little bit then go our separate ways," Risch said.
"He's a cat, but he's as affectionate as a dog," she said.
The cat wears no collar.
"It's small. Short hair. Gray. Not very distinct markings. It might be a bit of a tabby coat, but it's more of a monarch gray," Shilka said.
Risch and Strickland both said the cat has followed them to their respective West Street apartments.
"He just kind of showed up," Strickland said.
Freshman Catherine Shilka said she saw the cat on top of the Mauck Hall sign.
"It was meowing like crazy," she said. She said she and a friend figured someone had put the cat on the sign - evidently it didn't want to be there. They lifted the cat to the ground, petted it for a short while before the cat darted away.
"I don't think he wanted to be near the sign anymore," Shilka said.
Junior Allison Weimar said she woke up one morning surprised to find the cat in her bed.
Weimar lives in the basement of Mauck and her window was broken and left open. She said she and her roommate joked about naming it Shoes, making a litter box from a shoebox and leaving the box in the closet.
They never planned to keep the cat and it soon found its way back outside, but Weimar says she leaves dishes of milk outside when she sees it.
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