First, he took off right after supper like he had an important errand. Next morning I expected to see him sharing my pillow, but he wasn’t home. I didn’t worry as he is loyal but very independent. After a couple days I went around checking his usual haunts Leaving word that he should return home ASAP. I started to worry about his health as he tires easily in the heat. After I shed some tears I assumed he abandoned me. Damn it after I invested so much o our relationship too.
Then 5 frickin days layer he saunters back into my life wanting to pick up where we left off. I forgave him, scolded home and started to groom him as it’s mutually pleasing to us both. But he declined my attention and just wanted to go to bed. I strongly suspected that he bathed slept and ate well while he was gone. But I was happy to have him home and felt better because I had to leave for a trip the next day. Before I left I begged him to stay home and be good. He was non committal. But what does he do? Takes his leave again for another bender while I’m gone. And when he returned days later he’s fit as a fiddle. I’m convinced he’s two timing me! Because again after days roaming the wilds he returns sleek and shiny with nary a burr or mat in his coat.
As soon as I get home he’s getting a kitty collar and chipped. I mean who could resist a super long haired black cat with green eyes and a ridiculously fuzzy long tail!
this reminds me of a show i watched a while back on cats where in a british town various people had a cat that only showed up at certain days of the week but no one could track him for long so for the show they waited and when he showed up to one house they chipped the cat
They watched him for 2 weeks … little freeloader had 9 different places he called home and answered to a different name at each place …hed just do a route and when he got to the end on either side hed just start over again the odd thing is it wasn’t just food … he go inside and be a normal house cat for each house … they ended up forming a club and update each other on the cats location health ect
something else I learned in some parts of GB its illegal to have an all-indoor cat … you have to let them out when they want by law …
Your cat is being fed by a neighbor, and even though it is not hungry, is still killing as many birds and smaller mammals as it can, which is quite a lot.
Keep your cat indoors, or put it down; if for no smarter reason, then because it will be a more humane ending for your undoubtably cute little two-timer.
Undoubtedly he’s mooching off a neighbor, testing out their couch and getting lots of a scritchies! But how does he know which house is feline friendly? Neighborhood is a abounds with canines- French bulldogs, yellow labs, German shepardssss, happy yappies, pitties and mutts. Is he faster than a fox a speeding car and too tough for birds of prey. Though getting carried off by an eagle would be a noble death
Cat 1: I noticed him trotting rapidly down the street towards our house. Where is he coming from? After checking we figured out which house he was visiting. Turns out the lady there had recently lost her cat which looked like ours. So she made friends with him. (The usual way, with food, of course.)
Oh, well. Can’t complain given the backstory.
Cat 2: Was friendly with everyone all over the neighborhood. Better known than we were. But during her rounds sometimes there’d be a heavy rain and the creek would flood so she’d be stuck on the other side for a couple days or so. But she always came back in decent shape.
(We haven’t let any cats out in a while. The coyotes showed up.)
He’s not faster than a speeding car, nor is he faster than disease vectors, hungry coyotes, or a new dog that isn’t being tended properly. I suspect all those doggos you know of in the neighborhood now are being well-tended and thus allowed out of their yards only when supervised. And your kitty knows not to go into yards where there are doggos, but it only takes one accidentally open gate and an aggressive dog for you to lose your kitty.
Or the neighbor that’s finally had enough of the cat using his garden as a litterbox.
Please figure out how to keep this cat SAFE indoors. Make him a big catio. Get him a bunch of those toys that they bat around and eventually, a treat comes out. Etc.
Chela, if you are going to let him continue to spend that much time outdoors and get him collar, make sure it’s a breakaway collar. Cats tend to go into lots of tight places where a collar can get caught on things. Sometimes they can’t get free on their own. Sometimes when they panic while trying to get loose a non-breakaway collar can twist up and choke them. If they climb and jump/fall down they can even hang themselves by the collar. There are collars with an elastic section that is a middle ground. That increases the odds of getting free but doesn’t prevent the panic-twist chokehold if they can’t. Expect to replace collars occasionally. Just remember when he comes home collarless, you potentially just saved his life. Collars can be deadly for outdoor cats.
By the second sentence I was already pretty sure it was a cat.
The first stray cat we took care of hung around because she was eating our dog’s food. The dogs would just lay there and watch while the cat ate their food. When we first starting putting out a bowl of cat food, the cat would continue to eat the dog food and the dogs would try to eat the cat food. After a short while, things got straightened out.
Many years ago we had a cat named Big Guy. We let him outside because we were young and dumb and didn’t know better. Well one day Big Guy didn’t come home. For a few days we would go outside and call for him but no Big Guy then, on day 4 or 5, here comes Big Guy, freshly brushed and with a new collar. We never found out who his other family was but he continued between our two homes for a long time.
In hindsight we should have attached a note to find out who he was moonlighting with.
Our station had a dog that would go on “walkabout”. We’d see him in the nearby town dogging around. Eventually it would catch up with him and our corpsman would place him in our van and drive him back to the station to begin a regimen of tetracycline to treat his gonorrhea. Once he recovered from that and built up his strength he’d head back to town. Rinse, lather, and repeat.
