The feline has pilfered more than 600 items from neighbors - behavior so odd it's baffled and delighted animal experts and made Dusty a minor celebrity.
Marilyn Krieger, a cat behavior consultant in Redwood City. "I can't say exactly why he's doing it, except it has to do with mixed-up neurotransmitters. I think it's a form of OCD."
"He stole my bikini," said Kelly McLellan, who lives a few doors up the street. "He did it in two trips. He was very focused on keeping the ensemble. When it went missing I wasn't worried, though. I knew where to go."
A year ago Chu contacted People magazine about her kleptomaniac kitty, and a star was born. Dusty has been on the David Letterman show and Animal Planet, and infrared footage of his nighttime antics are a hit on YouTube - there's even video of him dragging home a brassiere. The public can meet Dusty at an adoption event June 25 at the Peninsula Humane Society, where he will be posing for photos and allowing fans to pet him.
Dusty's predilection for theft is rare but not unheard of.... Some cats will bring home half-dead mice, acting on their instinct to teach kittens to hunt. Dusty's habit is likely related to that somehow, minus the kittens and mice.
"It's like a predatory instinct gone awry," said Richmond cat consultant Mikel Delgado.
"In his mind he's caught something and he's bringing it home to share," she said.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/18/BAIN1JVID8.DTL#ixzz1Q3zjPvw8
Dusty among his contraband not looking guilty but more proud than anything.
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