My cat ran away...

[Sam Mills 51]

MrWrite, I'm sorry for what's going on. If it helps at all, most pets don't tend to wander far away. Many of them just make their way back ... just not as quickly as those who have been with them would like.

IJAG, I'm sorry your cat story has turned into a cautionary tale.

 

[MrWrite]

Called the local shelter -- which said it has had 15 cats since this morning -- but none of them were him (I went down and checked). So at least he's succeeded in avoiding the long arm of the law. We checked all the bushes, etc., in the area, both last night and this morning. So far no luck.

What I can't figure is how if he needed to climb onto my chest every morning at 8 a.m. (even though my girlfriend is the one who usually handles morning feedings) to wake me up to get fed, he hasn't felt the urge to hit up the food dish we've left outside all night and day.

I'd take a few IJAG-like scars if it meant him coming back.

Thanks for everyone's support. I'll keep you updated if anything changes...

 

[kokane_muthashed]

When I was married, my wife and I had an indoor cat bolt on us. He was gone for 14 days. I had given up, figured sadly that he had gone on to the great litterbox in the sky. The next day (day 15), I heard him meowing in the front yard. He had lost a lot of weight but he was a fat ass to begin with. My wife and I were so excited, it was tough getting him back in the house. We didn't wanna spook him.

Thankfully, after that episode, he never wanted to go outside again.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Sorry about your kitty.

I, too, would have figured he would not have gone far.

Could be he's fallen in with a neighborhood cat and is making the rounds. If so, the key word being rounds, he should turn up again before long.

A couple of our cats like to time the door opening and closing to go outside the house, but both usually commence rolling around on the sidewalk and aren't hard to corral.

 

[slappy4428]

Yeah, don't pull it out from underneath a parked car by its left rear leg. That will NOT turn out well.

My finger has six permanent scars, and my upper lip is permanently scarred.

Was that before or after your cat pissed on the laptop as you were waiting in the hospital?

*running like hell*

I laughed like hell at that

 

[rube]

Sorry about your cat MrWrite ... they almost always seem to turn up when you least expect it. When I was a kid, we thought our cat was gone for like a week -- turns out, she was just lounging around in our ridiculously filthy basement for about six days.

On an unrelated note, do cats come when they're called? I know damn well they hear you, but I'm pretty sure their smartass demeanor demands it of them to completely and utterly ignore you.

 

[MrWrite]

HOORAY!

The cat found his way home (sort of). He found his way to behind my back balcony (im on the second floor) and when he saw me sit in my chair by the glass door (after another lengthy search of the neighborhood) he started meowing. I stood on the back deck reassuring him vocally while my girlfriend ran around the building to scoop him up.

So Charles Barkley is back home. And as far as I know, he hasn't racked up any new gambling debts while he was patrolling the neighborhood.

Thanks to all for the kind words and happy-ending stories. I'm relieved to say I now have one of my own.

 

[imjustagirl]

Awesome news, MrWrite.

 

[BYH]

Awesome news! Very happy for you. I'd be a complete wreck if one of my little buddies got out.

you might want to take him to the vet to give him a once-over (and, if he's due for his disease shots, those as well, because youneverknow). So happy he's back!

 

[rube]

Hey nice! Good to hear he/she wasn't just sleeping under a gigantic box of family photo albums for a week.

 

[Ace]

That's great, Mr.Write.

 

[BYH]

On an unrelated note, do cats come when they're called? I know damn well they hear you, but I'm pretty sure their smartass demeanor demands it of them to completely and utterly ignore you.

You're right, they choose what and when they want to hear.

My older cat, I swear to God, he must have a cat IQ of 250. When my wife goes to bed, our younger cat is inevitably in there with her. She'll call him in and he'll sit there, staring at the door from the floor near the couch. I step completely out of the room, she calls him and he runs in.

This is also the cat who runs into the kitchen whenever he hears the russling of a package of lunch meat. He LOVES ham. Sometimes, he comes in when I'm merely picking out a paper plate on which to put my sandwich...yet he almost never does it when I'm picking out a paper plate to eat a bagel. He's something else.

 

[BigSleeper]

I'm sorry to hear about this Write. Hope the little guy returns, which odds are he will. Here's a story.

The summer I met my wife, she had a cat that for whatever reason, just didn't like men. For some reason, the cat warmed up to me. A few weeks later, my wife and the cat moved into my one-bedroom, second-floor apartment. We both worked nights at the time, and she would head off to work first. One day after she left, I noticed the window slightly ajar and the cat nowhere to be found in the apartment. I looked everywhere in and around the apartment twice. All I could conclude was that the cat crawled out on the ledge and roamed off who knows where. I left for work.

Ten hours later, I'm walking home after midnight. As I approach my building, there the cat is, meowing up at the window two stories up. Who knows how long it sat there. I trotted up to her, hoping with every step she wouldn't freak out and bolt, scooped her up and brought her inside. She's still with us 11 years later.

EDIT: Congrats! I'm sure you're relieved.

 

[kokane_muthashed]

Great news, Write. Happy for you.

 

[StormSurge]

NICE!!!!

 

[snuffy2]

Your post is obviously future law enforcement cover for when you plastic wire tie your cat's neck and throw him into your lawn shed and actually marvel at 'Thumper's' vitality as he thumped against the metal walls for what will seem like minutes while you walked back up the grass hill to tend to the remaining chicken parts on the grill.

 

[Dyno]

Glad to hear the story had a happy ending!

 

[Barsuk]

Awesome news, MrWrite. I clicked this thread expecting a major bummer, so I was pleased to get to the happy ending ... and grateful my little fella has no desire whatsoever to go outdoors. :D

 

[ServeItUp]

Awesome news, Write. A few years ago, my cat skipped out for a couple of days, then came back limping and with some road rash but scared straight into staying inside.

She won't come when I call her but she acknowledges her name with a meow. I'm just happy she knows that much.

 

[terrier]

Yay!
I went through this a few years ago with my older cat on a cold week in December. He went out on the enclosed porch late one night and made himself scarce, so I closed the front door, figured he'd be scratching to get in within a few minutes. He didn't, and I went to bed, having forgotten he was out there. He must've skipped out when the paperboy came the next morning.
Went through a hellacious week, calling the shelter and putting up signs in the neighborhood. No luck. Meanwhile, my stepson came home with a kitty his friend wasn't allowed to keep, and we reluctantly agreed to take him in (even though he was such a leaper he broke something every day the first month we had him).
Well, about a week later, the kid heads out the front door to school, and there's the long-lost feline, looking none the worse for wear after what we feared was a week lost in the cold and snow. Somebody probably took him in, but his ungodly squeal and penchant for humping human forearms wore out his welcome elsewhere.
We're a three-cat household now, but have managed to avoid further disaster. They've gotten out a time or two, and the young one has bolted for a few hours at a time. The little one allows itself to be picked up without a fight. The old one, though...one time it got into the neighbor's yard after the kid left a door open. It squealed like it wanted to be picked up and taken back in, but he bit, clawed and scratched up my hands pretty badly on the way into the house. Love the horny, tempermental ***** anyway.