The Service Cat & End of the World Predictions

On Wednesday Brenna and headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things and make sure Ron had his lunches for his work week. We split up briefly as she had to turn in a prescription and I got started on the groceries.

As I am walking down the juice asile here comes another cart towards me and the gal is talking to herself. It was a little strange, but nothing like the "People of Walmart" strange. That is until I notice that she has a cat in the seat of her basket. You have to admit that you don't see cats out very often. Then I notice the cat has a harness on it and there is a sign that it's a Service Cat. What? I've never heard of a service cat before! Dogs, monkey's, and even birds, but a cat?

I continue down the aisle with my jaw on the floor and Brenna finally catches up with me. I tell her about this cat I just saw so we decide to go find them so she can see for herself. Luckily, another shopper had stopped her and had started chatting, so we were able to join in the conversation.

The cat, Montana, has been trained to pick up on the owner's seizures and alert. Nobody is allowed to touch the cat other than the owner so the cat doesn't get confused by somebody else's body chemicals. She must touch the cat every 45 minutes so the cat can monitor her. I have to admit, it was the coolest thing ever! There are only 20 service cats in Arizona and only 3000 in the country total. There is something like a 10-15 year waiting list for service animals and they can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $300,000. Ouch! This gal was so nice to stand there and talk to us for so long. I made a comment about how it must take her forever to get thru the grocery store and she kind of laughed and said it usually did but she was happy to educate people if she had the time.

One thing the cat can also do is pick up on other animals illnesses and earthquakes. She told us about last year on Easter when Phoenix experienced the earthquake that hit Mexico. They were at Chili's eating dinner and the cat started going crazy. She said the cat had been acting strange for about 4 days but all of a sudden just was going nuts. They thought maybe it was alerting to a seizure, so she layed down on the booth but all of a sudden the lights starting swaying and the water glasses were jumping across the table. As soon as it was over, the cat settled down and was fine.

When Brenna and I were walking away after thanking her for talking to us, our mouths were just going a mile a minute. It really was the coolest thing! But all of a sudden it occured to us that maybe the cat could tell us if we needed to worry about the end of the world predictions! We circled back and actually asked her! She had the best laugh, as we all did, but according to the cat, we having nothing to worry about this weekend!