Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Greebo Lives!

Fans of the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett will remember Greebo, the one-eyed, scarred, malevolent tom-cat owned by Nanny Ogg. In Pratchett's books, Greebo is well-known for fighting -- and beating -- wolves and bears.

The BBC is reporting about a real-life tom named Jack, who chased a black bear up a tree not once but twice:

The terrified bear was only able to make its escape when owner Donna Dickey called the hissing cat into the house.

Ms Dickey said Jack liked to keep a close watch on his territory and often chased away small animals, but one of this size was a first.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty', never knowing he'd go after a bear," Donna Dickey told local newspaper The Star-Ledger.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Another famous cat of this type was "Horse" from Murray Ball's comic "Footrot Flats".

The interesting point is that "Horse" was a real cat that invaded Murray's vege patch. After Murray ran out of things to throw at this cat to get him to go away, he left him, expecting the cat to leave eventually. He didn't. The character Horse and subsequent antics, quite often were based on events that the real life Horse had done, though with liberal license taken. In "Footrot Flats" # 7, their is a tribute to Horse as he had died. Murray's comments that unsavoury animals had started lurking around again after Horse's demise.