Heh. While I did indeed spend middle school wading through bad SF by the truckload, including vast amounts of McCaffrey, I do not remember telepathic alien cats! When did they come in? I pretty much quit reading her stuff sometime in the mid-to-late-80s, so I'm guessing it must have been from some later series.

(Where oh where is all of the cheesy telepathic critter SF for dog people, damnit?)