I don’t think I’ve ever been subject to such pain and malaise in my entire life.
My cat- my sweet little tabby, only one and a half year old, disappeared.
What am I supposed to do?
I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t go 5 minutes without welling up in tears.
And I’m supposed to be the strong one- the rational one who doesn’t let emotions get in the way.
Until yesterday. I can’t even control my weeping.
I miss her so much. I feel as though a part of me has died. Literally.
I never thought the loss of my cat would hurt me so…profusely.
I feel a little silly writing all of this, but I can definitely use the support.
My family and I have rummaged through the neighborhood, calling her name- we’ve posted over a hundred flyers all over the area and we’ve gone to the SPCA five times in a matter of two days.
No word and no show
I can really use some suggestions, success stories, and words of empathy…
My co-worker’s cat went walkabout last month. She was just as upset, worried, and anxious as you sound. But the cat came back! And he was very glad to be home after his experience. He’d led a sheltered, indoor life up to then.
Is you cat normally indoors? Spayed or whole?
If she is an indoor cat that got out, she may have trouble finding her way home. So keep looking.
I had a neutered indoor male who when on an adventure for a week.
I lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building that had open breezeways. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a far away meow. I went out on my balcony, and realized he had found our building but not the right floor. He was on the balcony one floor below mine. I went down to get him, and he was so well behaved, he wouldn’t jump onto a table they had out there, so he could get over the rail. He finally jumped over the table into my waiting arms. I was so relieved I cried for the next half hour.
If she is whole, she may be looking for a companion.
Oh, picante, I’m so sorry for what your are going through!
When my son was an infant, we hired a baby sitter one night and gave her the usual instructions (“The cats are indoor cats, but Catullus will charge the door if he gets a chance.”)
Got home and, yes, Catullus had escaped. We waited and hoped, posted fliers, called the animal shelter, and as the days passed, wept and mourned — and then 10 days later, he appeared in the back yard with that cat “I meant to do that” look on his face.
Just as jjimn reported, Catullus was skinny but otherwise no worse for wear.
Keep us posted, please. We’ll all be sending “kitty come home” vibes in your direction.
I friend lived in rural Idaho and her cat, Jack, would wander away for days. Then he was gone, they waited a few weeks but finally gave up. About a year later he just showed up on the back porch, missing an ear but otherwise just fine.
Even weirder, my ex from rural Ireland had a donkey called Nelly who used to escape from her field and disappear for a month at a time. She had been “done”, but still wanted a bit of action. Donkeys aren’t that common there, so she had to travel far and wide to find a randy male. She always came back home.
Some kitties, if they have been traumatized, will not come when called. A real-life Pet Detective on NPR said that she sets traps with tuna (or your kitty’s favorite food) around the area.
Before my sister’s cat Callie died, she slipped out of the house several times to go wandering. She always came home after a couple weeks, minus her collar and fat as ever and completely nonchalant about the whole thing. After the third or fourth time this happened, and Callie still hadn’t returned home after nearly a month, my sister began to be really worried that she had finally met an untimely end. Then Callie showed back up, only wearing a completely different collar and new tags.
It turned out that the cat had found a vacation home just far enough away that the guy who adopted her didn’t visit the same stores my sister did to see the posters she’d put up. He just thought that he’d found an adorable cat that needed a home, since her owners obviously didn’t care enough about her to put a collar and tags on her. (Not true, she just lost them along the way.)
Callie had been a semi-feral kitten before my sister rescued her. We figured she just got tired of the cushy city living every once and a while and needed to be a wild jungle cat once again–probably very difficult in the suburbs of Milwaukee, I assume, hence the vacation home.
The one I’m cat-sitting for got out a few weeks ago, prompting me to start this emergency thread.
As the lady on NPR predicted, she was right nearby. Just on the other side of one of my walls, in fact.
One thing I did that may have helped was running around the neighborhood making familiar noises. She loves to chase crumpled up paper, so I took a stack with me and crumpled as I went while also calling her.
Go outdoors after midnight when everything has quieted down and call for kitty. Normal daytime neighborhood noises can prevent her from you call, and she may be scared.
Look around for sheds/garages she may be shut into (maybe neighbors on vacation shut her into a garage?), or other places she may have gotten into but can’t get out of.
I have had cats disappear for 7 days (he came back with a broken pelvis, but was fine after some recouperation time) and 5 days (he came back just fine) when I allowed my cats outdoors.
Thanks so much for your compassion and consideration, guys.
I really appreciate it.
One thing that I should’ve mentioned is that she’s an indoor cat. What surprises me the most is that she’s totally anti-social and is generally afraid of the outdoors/uknown. She hisses at just about anybody who doesn’t belong to my immediate family. So, for her to go and do something like this is beyond me.
She took off early Saturday morning, at about 4am approximately- this is what we assume. The weather was mild. Saturday evening, however, it started to rain heavily. That’s what my main concern is about…is she cold and wet and starving? Is she frightened? Even worse, if someone actually found her: are they mistreating her?
I guess I should cool off and give it some time…
I feel much better after reading your commentary.
Comb the area immediately outside your house very, very carefully.
When my indoor cat got out a few months ago, we searched around the house, but didn’t see him. He didn’t make any noise. After about six hours of intense hunting, and after two days of being missing, we finally found him in a well-concealed place under the deck, and I was able to coax him out with a wet cat food treat.
Pet psychologists say that an indoor cat who gets outside is very, very likely to stick close to the house. Your cat may just be too scared to make any noises.
I know how you feel–when I thought my sweet boy was gone, I was a wreck.
When Khan was a kitten, there was a door malfunction that set him loose in our apartment building. After canvassing the tenants and finding out nobody had seen him, I was frantic. He wasn’t in the basement, he wasn’t in any of the other apartments, someone must have let him outside.
Three days later, I had papered the neighborhood with flyers and searched under every bush and behind every garbage can, spent several hours sitting in the basement with a bowl of cat food, and gone to sleep every night hearing that pathetic “Mommy, I’m cold and hungry!” mew in my head.
Two more days after that, I took a friend down into the basement to show her how creepy it was, and in the middle of a sentence, barely audible, I heard a small, quiet squeak. A little more searching and there he was–burrowed under a pile of truck tires, covered in a week’s worth of basement dust, looking scared to death and entirely uncertain I wasn’t going to punish him. (Although, I suppose the bath he got might have been considered punishment.)
Sometimes they wait until you’ve given up hope before they come back. Good luck, and I’ll be thinking of you. Like others have said, if she’s indoor, take a very close look at the immediate area. Hope to hear you’ve found her real soon!
