Yet, today, I faced the truth and admitted to myself that I will probably never find my cat Dagny. I have been looking for her, posted notices for her and called all the pounds looking for her. I spent hours late at night waiting outside my old apartment hoping she would show up. I haven’t found her.
I am heartbroken. I got Dagny when she was a kitten and fell in love with her instantly. She grew and became my best friend. She was always there no matter how bad my day was. Just giving her belly rubbings made me happy. She decided that the best place to give birth to her kittens was next to me. Dagny helped me through some seriously bad times by giving me her love.
Oh God, I miss her.
I know that Dagny escaped the fire. All my kittens made it out ok. I imagine that Dagny found a good home because Dagny loved everyone. She was very social and would bother everyone until she got her full measure of petting. I hope she is happy, healthy and enjoying her life now.
I’m sorry to hear this. Hang on to the belief that your kitty has a good home elsewhere. I will remember you both in my prayers tomorrow morning in church.
Don’t lose hope! Sometimes cats can turn up after long absences. Especially when they’re afraid, they can go into hiding. Keep looking - and I’m glad you are OK.
I have a good story to share that might give you some hope. A co-worker friend who frequently discusses her kitty, Simba, with me (I won’t got into the backstory, but it is sad and tender how she came to adopt him). She lives in a 4th floor apartment, and they are always careful not to just close, but lock the doors (balcony and apt). Well, about 4 weeks ago there was a terrible storm. As she tells it, she kept hearing Simba crying and kept getting up to check on him, but couldn’t quite figure out where he was – everything while rattling from storm condition was locked up tight so she didn’t give it too much thought. But in the morning, she could find him.
A couple weeks passed and still they couldn’t find him. She told me they’d torn about the house, pulled everything out of closets, etc. She was devastated and giving up hope. I suggested she look for any small places like behind the refrigerator or under cabinets where he might have squeezed himself (using her nose as well to check for urine or fecal smells that might give him away even if he couldn’t mew). She was at a loss for how he could’ve gotten out or where he might of gone. I also gave her this hint which I’d overhead from the founder of the rescue where I volunteer – put a bowl of food outside the building but close to the door. The kitty follows his nose and appetite.
She’d followed my advice and hadn’t had any results. She finally told her children who were away at summer camp about Simba’s disappearance and given away his things – resigning herself that she probably would never see him again. She said she was so sad seeing the bowl of food there day after day – just as full as before. Well, last Thursday (I believe it was) she came in grinning from ear to ear. After being AWOL for four weeks, her husband gave a another call for Simba outside, and who should show up a few pounds lighter (and with a bad case of the hershey squirts) – SIMBA! This was around midnight.
Her husband scooped him up and ran up to the apartment. She was moved beyond the telling. I don’t believe in miracles, per se, but I believe that miraculous things can happen. She said its funny, it used to be Simba would rush the door whenever they left, the tomcat in him wanting to go exploring…since returning, he hasn’t made a single move towards the door.
Keep hope alive. Or, if Dagny doesn’t come home, know that there are thousands of people and rescues out there looking after lost or abandoned strays.
My family once owned a cat who was found and given to the local shelter, tags still on her, 6 months after she had disappeared, and so we got her back. She still had her claws so she could hunt and some people fed her as well. In fact, we still have the cat (sort of, my parents are moving to England and so now she’s with my aunt). We could never let her out after that because she got so used to hunting and eating what she caught that she had worms all the time and we had to deworm her every week.
I’ve kind of gotten off on a tangent there, but anyway, don’t give up hope! We had completely given up hope and even gotten a new kitten (who didn’t work out), and when the shelter called and said they had her, we couldn’t believe it. Sometimes these things do happen.
I am keeeping a small hope alive in my heart that I will find Dagny. At the same time I realize that I probably will never see her again or know what happened to her. The not knowing what happened to her is killing me.
I’d give anything to have Dagny curled up in my lap purring away while I give her belly rubbings.
I knew a family who lived on a farm near Winnipeg. Their furball escaped one brutally cold January night (remember, we’re talking -35 to -40 celcius at night). They searched for days, and finally gave up figuring that a housecat with no experience in the outdoor world couldn’t possibly survive a week in such bitter winter weather.
In May, almost four months later, a neighbour stopped by saying “I think I saw your cat.”
Somehow, he’d made his way to a tree nursery that had a vast greenhouse system. He’d met up with a bunch of other cats (welcome in the greehouses because they kill pesky rodents) and had spent the coldest months of the winter enjoying a tropical holiday with his new friends.
They went to the greenhouse, called out the furball’s name, and sure enough, a nervous and much skinner kitty came over with an expression on his face as if to say “Oh hi, humans. Where have you been?”
Don’t give up hope. Keep searching, and search regularly – sometimes if they are a bit traumatized, they hear you and see you, but are still too nervous to come out.
We’ve had lots of (outdoor) cats over the years, and while I have not attached to them as closely as you have to Dagny, I do love them and I have this to say:
I grieve more for the ones we found in the road than for the ones that have disappeared. I know the sad fate of Phil and Loomis, and have the reminder of the beautiful grave site that Mr. S created for them. I miss them terribly because I know I’ll never see them again. But I can still imagine that Boo, Guy, Lenny, and Mamacat are living a nice life somewhere else, either on their own (they never were fully tame) or fattened up on someone else’s porch. It’s possible, and so that’s the reality I imagine for them, since I can’t do anything to change what it might be. And I can also imagine that, as they sometimes did after previous disappearances, they might show up looking for a snack. You never know.
In the meantime, give Dagny’s petting to Gouda by proxy. We consider that part of Phyllis’s petting actually belongs to the late great Miss Emily, and that somehow it gets passed along.
We consider that part of Phyllis’s petting actually belongs to the late great Miss Emily, and that somehow it gets passed along.