Probably the most exciting and wonderous moment with Spike took place simply walking with him out of the bedroom where he had been sleeping. The door to the room was closed. He needed it open.
He came to me and made a very distinct sound, a kind of clipped cat sound. As I rose to automatically open the door for him, I heard myself say "What?" in exactly the same tone I had heard my father use with animals. Spike immediately produced the same intonation in reply. Shocked, I tried the sounds again and again he replied with exact replica of the sound I had made.
I had been making this sound to him since he first arrived in our home, and now, several years later, he was able to reproduce a similie close enough to demand my acknowledgement: he was speaking to me.
I'm sure others have heard animals, cats, dogs, etc speak in this and other ways but our generally held agreement about cats is that they do not imitate sound. At least, this was what I believed until Spike the Wonder Cat taught me otherwise.