School Visit

From Emily:

"Today, Briar came to visit us at Pacific Grove High School! I was standing in line to grab some lunch, and Briar just came wandering into the multi. Later in the day, he came to visit us in the gym, playing some volleyball with us. He's such an adorable little cat!"

Sounds like he was making his rounds.

Cool Cat

From Wes:

"Today I was at baseball practice when I saw a cat walking on the field. When I went to check his collar I saw it was Briar. My friends had been talking about him today at school and he is as cool as they all said he was."

Hey Wes, thanks for your email. Every day I'm amazed as to how many people notice him. :) Good to know there are nice people keeping an eye out for him.

Briar's Followers

From Sage,

"Today during lunch at my High School, we saw Briar walk by. Since this was such an odd thing we started to follow him. Many people converged and followed the cat. He walked into Mr. Morgan's, a cat hating football coach/ history teacher, classroom. We all stood in the doorway and stared as Briar waltzed into the room and disappeared into a file box. He ran out through the throng of legs and mosied on down the hall with his followers. We petted him and discovered this website, and then he went on his way. This was COOOOLLL!!!!!"

When I read this one I couldn't stop laughing. Haha, apparently he is having a ball with you guys. Thanks for your email! :)

Briar goes to School

From Jenn:

"Today Briar Kitty decided to pay a visit to the Elementary School campus. We found him standing guard over one of the many gopher holes we have on our main lawn. Smart kitty!"

From: Deborah

"Today Briar came to visit us at the Elementary School! He is just adorable! He sat outside the office and waited patiently for a gopher to come out from one of the many mounds in the lawn. One did emerge and Briar caught it!! He took it into the nearby garden and played with it for quite a while! Not sure if the gopher escaped or not but Briar was wonderful entertainment for us today! He wandered down the pathway to the Kindergarten center and into the woods! I hope he comes back to visit soon!! I also hope he travels safely!!!"

Thanks for your messages! He seems to patrol this whole area within a 1/2 square mile or so and has good success on his hunts.

Wandering

From Dillon:

"Last night my friend and I were walking and we see briar walking along and my friend completely freaks out and is like telling me about the cat. Briar starts following us so I pick him up. We chilled with the cat for like an hour and "hung out" with him, then he wandered off into the woods. About 30 minutes later we were sitting and he must have followed us because he comes up and jumps onto my friend.

The next day at school we are all finishing up P.E. when one of the TA's walks in with briar in his arms. "dude i just found him wandering around the parking lot."

Thanks for your message Dillon. Sometimes I think he is lost, but if he was lost, he wouldn't keep going back to the same places. He seems to be entertained by youth. :)

Workout

From Sophia:

"Today Briar felt like he needed a work out... So he decided to come into my highschool during P.E. He played some volley ball with us and made a riot. Lol. I love Briar <3"

Thanks for your message Sophia. There's nothing I can or can't make him do. It's great knowing his whereabouts and that he is meeting some nice people. I appreciate the tabs. :)

Shopping at Save Mart

Message Transcription:
"Hi there I am here in Save Mart in Pacific Grove and your cat Briar is running around the grocery store shopping looking for some tuna and some chicken, so I'm not sure you're going to come by or let him go out, but he is at the grocery store shopping. Thank you! Bye."

Kidnapping is not a solution

I received a concerned email from an acquaintance of Briar's. I always appreciate everyone's concern for my cute little kitty. And, after reading this guys email, I completely understand how he felt. Having been there and worried about Briar myself, I don't think kidnapping would be the best solution. Please feel free to express your opinion on the matter. Our concerned city residence writes:
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"He followed 2 of my friends and myself home from the PG forest. We figured he was lost, as one would assume if there is a housecat walking the streets, because it's been generally agreed upon by the pet community that having outdoor cats is a hazard to their health and threatens their general safety. Anyway, we thought we would bring the cat to their house, so we could contact it's owner and return it to a safe home. We almost made it to the house when the cat decided to turn into oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, I had to attempt to get in the way of the car to save this wandering cat's life. It did successfully run away from me and out of the line of the car, but it was a very nerve racking situation. I got ahold of the cat, and checked it's tags, finding Briarkitty.com While my friends went inside to visit the website, I tried to apprehend the cat again, to no avail. The cat cut my arm when I tried to pick it up again. Halfway back to the original place we found the cat, I got a call saying that this was someone's idea of a cute website for a cat to wander around and gather stories for. This is not cute or clever, I spent nearly an hour trying to save this animal, was very mildly injured in the process and couldn't even get the cat in the end. I would call the humane society about such reckless endangerment of a pet, but sadly I don't think there are laws for this kind of neglect. Judging from the behavior I witnessed today, it would not surprise me if your cat ends up dead due to a car accident or eating some poisonous plant. You know who's fault it's going to be if/when that happens? Yours. You clearly do not respect the dangers of our modern world to a small animal like Briar. Had we gotten him, and seen this, I don't know that we would have returned him to you."
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In response to the reprimand, I respond:
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"Thanks for your opinion and for taking so much of your time to try to save Briar. He has touched so many lives for the better and I'm sorry you were so stressed about his life and that he couldn't touch yours for the better also. What I'd like you to know is, I love him, and raising Briar, if I was to keep him indoors his whole live and deprive him of his natural instincts, yea, he would probably live a long life, but he would also be depressed, overweight, and probably on kitty prozac.

I'm also sorry you were mildly injured, he probably knew you were going to kidnap him, that's probably why he scratched and ran from you. Animals are very intuitive about these things, as I'm sure you know. And if you know cats, better to let them be than to force them into doing something they don't want to do. As far as the poisonous plants, thanks for your concern, but I'm not too worried (unless someone decided to put tuna on some hemlock, then we would probably have bigger problems to worry about like human safety). And I think if Briar's was stupid enough to eat a poisonous plant, he would have already done it and wouldn't be alive right now.

Sorry for all the torment he's put you through. And I do appreciate your care for his life.

Thanks."
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Oh, and Briar's two cents "Whew, I dodged a big one there, I could have had HIM as my person."

PG Juice and Java

Briar disappeared one morning. I received a call:

"Hi, this is PG Juice & Java, you're little kitty seems to have wandered in here and is making himself comfortable on the floor. You might want to come get him."

Out of all the places to visit in downtown PG, Briar gives PG Juice & Java 5 stars for their hospitality, fresh pastries, and free wi-fi.