Photo: The Canadian Press Fred Everitt of Tupelo, Miss., is all smiles after his cat, “Bandit,” alerted him in the middle of the night that two men were trying to break in the back door of his home, July 29, 2022, in Tupelo. Miss. (Thomas Wells/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP) A Mississippi man said his cat helped prevent a robbery at his home and credits the calico with saving his life. Bandit, a 20-pound (9.1 kg) cat, lives with her retired owner Fred Everitt in the Tupelo suburb of Belden. When at least two people tried to break into their shared home last week, the cat did its best to alert Everitt to the danger, he told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. “You hear about guard dogs,” Everitt, 68, said. “This is a guardian cat.” The attempted robbery took place between 2:30 and 3 a.m. on July 25, Everitt said. First he woke up to Bandit’s meows in the kitchen. Then she ran into the bedroom, jumped on the bed and started pulling the covers off him and clawing at his arms. Everitt knew something was wrong. “He’s never done that before,” Everitt said. “I went, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’” Everitt got up to investigate and saw two young men outside his back door. One had a gun and the other was using a crowbar to try to open the door, he said. Everitt said that by the time he got a gun and returned to the kitchen, the would-be intruders had already fled. Everitt told the newspaper that he did not call the police. He said the situation could have been different without Bandit. “It didn’t turn into a collision, thank God,” Everitt said. “But I think it’s just because of the cat.” Everitt adopted Bandit from the Tupelo-Lee Humane Society four years ago.
