I'm missing a cat...and it's not the escape artist

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We have three cats in a rather tiny “apartment”. There are four windows, three with permanent screens, and one with a removable screen panel duct-taped in place, because the escape-artist cat last year ripped a hole in the permanent screen and leapt out onto the awning above the side door and to the ground. Since the window is oddly constructed, we couldn’t replace the screen, hence the temporary measures.

There is a stairwell leading down to the rest of the house, with a door at the bottom that is always kept securely closed…the cats are not welcome in the lower half of the house. Only twice in all the years we’ve lived here has one of the cats gotten into the lower level of the house, and she was quickly returned (why, yes, it was the escape artist). It’s a tiny house, and something like a cat would be noticed.

Two days ago my mom, who lives downstairs, mentioned hearing a cat crying in the morning. I put this down to a complaint about Chloe (the escape artist) who sometimes goes down to the bottom of the stairwell and yowls just for the sheer fun of it. I didn’t really think anything of it.

Yesterday my mom mentions hearing the cat early in the morning again, but this time says she thinks it was outside, but says she didn’t see anything, and the meowing ended. Now we don’t have many stray or loose cats in this neighborhood…I can only think of one I’ve seen in the last 5 years. Now my mom made this comment at 8 pm yesterday. My son has been home all day with the cats. I go up and two cats come out to say hi, but not the fluffy dumb white cat, Angel. I ask my son if he’s seen her…and we both realize she’s been scarce the last day or two. this isn’t unusual…she likes hiding. But we start searching, and using the Patented Cat Attraction Device (rattling the canister with the kitty treats)

No Angel.

We’re searching, and calling, and unless she’s ill and hiding in the back of the closet somewhere…she’s not up here. And there is no way she could have slipped out into the lower level and not been seen…she’s not sneaky, and she’s easily confused. She can’t be hiding in the attic, because closed doors freak her out and she’d be crying and clawing at it. I searched the basement in case she somehow got down there and is chilling her belly on the cool concrete…

And for her to get outside would require her getting past me…which she can’t do without me seeing her…or getting out when Mom goes out for the mail…but that would require her hanging around downstairs, waiting…and she’d be seen.

I’m thoroughly baffled, and worried…I start walking around the neighborhood after church.

She’s not all that bright.

2

I have a cat or two that pulls a Houdini every so often. They don’t get outside, but we end up second-guessing whether this particular cat did. Inevitably we find her just standing in the middle of the room. We still haven’t figured out where the secret hiding place is!

Open a can of tuna or something and set it somewhere. She’s going to get hungry and the mewing will start. If there’s a window near where your mom thinks she hears the mewing, kitty might be able to smell the tuna and make herself visible.

Bad kitty! You worry your mom!!!

3

Lessons I learned when my indoor-only cat Rex escaped last fall:

If she’s exclusively an indoor cat, she is likely very close to the house. Walking the neighborhood is probably a waste of time. Look very carefully around your house. Rex was gone a week before anybody started seriously looking (because my parents were catsitting) :mad: , and yet when he was caught, it was right by the house.

Get a Hav-A-Heart trap (or two or three) and set it up near the house. Put it in an area where the cat has been seen/heard. Cover it with a towel to make it seem like a cozy safe place to go. Bait it with tuna fish or jack mackerel. I put some familiar items inside it too. Rex was caught the very first night we had these traps out. We got ours from the police department for free.

Best of luck!

4

Thanks. I just walked the neighborhood…got to see three of the four girls I used to babysit, all middle-aged now with teens of their own…but no sign of the cat. We’ve finished searching our closets and behind furniture and inside the mattress, as well as all the flowerbeds and the trees and the garage and the shed. The police don’t have her, and we’re not allowed to post signs on the telephone poles, so I hung one from our address sign…now I’m off to ask around in the neighborhood behind our back yard…the obvious direction she would take, away from the street…but if she followed my son out in the middle of the night…who knows?

5

Go out really late at night, when all is quiet. bring the treats. Call her and shake the treats. She may be freaked out and holed up somewhere near by. Animals don’t always do what you most expect them to do. When things are quiet you can more easily figure out where she might be, if she is the cat your mom heard. The trap is a very good idea, too.

6

This. I talked to a pet detective when I was looking for Rex, and she said that indoor only cats often just freak out and hole up somewhere. They go into survival mode and will likely not even recognize you as their owner. This was certainly true with my cat. I saw him the first night I started looking for him, but when I held out treats and approached him, he bolted.

The pet detective also told me that, even if you don’t see the cat near the house, that is still where she is likely to be. Cats will find odd places to hide and are very good at concealing themselves. Again, this was true with Rex. We caught him in the trap at the same spot I had seen him, by the house, two days later. I searched every inch of the area around the house and never saw him–but he was there.

I urge you to get a trap as soon as possible. You will have the highest likelihood of catching her that way.

7

any news on the furry one?

8

When I got up this morning, my mom said she’d heard soft meowing again, at about 5:30 am…right after my son came home. I searched around outside again, and down the basement, and the attic (which is above mom’s room) with no luck, but renewed hope…she’s still around.

I come home from work, take a skirt down the basement to wash, go outside to water plants while it’s soaking, have an incident with a dead mouse in the watering can, come back in the house…and hear a loud meow from the basement!

I call the boychild, we go down, fearing that maybe she fell down the laundry chute and is at the bottom of a (really deep) wooden box at the bottom…and she’s meowing away…finally comes out from behind some boxes of canning supplies. I’ve been down there Four times calling for her, listening for movement…nothing. The basement has no door…she could have come upstairs any time. I think she just got down there, got her belly all nice and cool and had a good long nap…and then was disoriented in the dark and couldn’t figure out how to come upstairs…plus momhates cats, and I think she can sense she would not be welcome. But darn…that was almost the first place we looked for her!

So now she’s safe and sound, and in negotiations with the other two cats…the balance of power had shifted in the time she was gone, and there will be a lot of smacking each other around and fighting over sleeping arrangements…

Thanks for all the concern and suggestions.

9

Glad to hear you found her!

10

Aren’t there certain rules about kitty threads? I want to know what this little troublemaker looks like so I can properly put her on my list. My list for cuddles. My cats hate being cuddled, but I do it anyway. It’s called rent.

11

hurray!!! i’m glad she finally showed herself.

12

Me, too! Durn all sneaky kittehs!

13

I’ll try to post her pic later…the computer is acting weird…