When people said "cats have nine lives", I thought it meant when a cat did something that could kill them, they could come back to life (or "regenerate" like on "Doctor Who") and they could this eight more times before they finally died.
This was further fueled because it was often used in cartoons about cats.
A childhood belief about cats and dogs
others believed things like this
- I alwaysused to think white cats were girls, and black cats were male ...— Smiley Face
- I used to believe that the cats eyes in the road...reflectors...were the eyeballs from real cats.— Liza P.
- My sister and I thought cats and dogs were the same animal, the dogs were male and the cats were female.— Paul
- When I was a little kid i thought cattle meant a group of cats— It's a group of cows and bulls!
- Because "transmogrify" has "mog" in it, I thought it meant "to swap cats".Anon
- As a child I believed that cats, when they died, became owls and always accompanied you. — AdryLiz