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... around the block with me when I was a child.

She was free to roam outside, probably killing scores of birds and other wild animals out there.

Anyway, she'd run up to me if she saw me alone outside. Then we got into a routine of walking around the block (about a mile) of our suburban neighborhood, with her periodically exploring some area and later catching up with me again. I eventually started to pretend that I was lost during our walks, hesitantly going the wrong way at some intersection and acting confused. That's when she'd stop and loudly meow, as if to say, "Home is this way!" Her tail would proudly stick straight up when I'd finally follow her quickened pace on the sidewalk, like she was my heroine leading me to safety!

I always gave her a kitty treat when we got home again, so maybe that's why she was eager to walk with me?

ALSO...
I was only a baby at that time, but my parents also had an elderly Maine Coon in the 1960's who started to use a toilet instead of his litter box! My father insisted that he barely trained the cat at all! He claimed that he only placed the big cat on a toilet seat after it had an accident next to the litter box, shouting for it to "Go there!" from now on. And it did! I don't remember that cat except for photographs of it laying next to and on top of me, bigger than my baby-body! It was supposedly very protective of me.