Top cat hears termites and saves owner's house

[Martin Coleman]

Lawrence-ville, Georgia USA

Tom 2- the cat alerts owner.

Sixtty eight -year-old Betty Macaluso doesn’t wake to the sound of an alarm clock. Like many of us, she’s awakened by a hungry cat or two, who gently knead her arm when it’s time for their breakfast. Unlike many of us, she wouldn’t be able to hear the alarm clock even if it did ring; she’s deaf, and her cats are her ears.

She adopted Tom 2 (an orange and white tabby) and Tiger (a heavier gray and black tabby), both now about a year old, from PetSmart in Lawrenceville, Georgia, when they were 12 weeks old.

“They know I can’t hear,” Macaluso, said through a sign language interpreter. “They hear for me.”

She remembers one morning when Tom 2 stood on her stomach, gazing intently at the ceiling above her bed. Over the course of the following week, he continues to stare at the same spot. She grabbed a flashlight and took a closer look, discovering a thin, round line on her ceiling. She immediately called a pest control company. Tom 2 had spotted termites.

Macaluso said the exterminator was puzzled as to how she found termites in the wall, since she’s deaf and could not hear them. “I smiled and pointed to my Tom 2.”

He told her she was lucky to have a cat like Tom 2; she could have lost her home if he hadn’t detected the termites.

Since Macaluso can’t hear her cats when they meow, the two have already learned to paw at her leg to get her attention.

PS. Dogs have been used to great effect by termite management companies in the US and Australia to find termites, so why not cats?

http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/tom-th...