Good luck. Fortunately, none of our three furballs shows the slightest interest in slipping out (two of them were former strays, who know what’s out there and that they’ve got a better deal in here).
I’ve never seen an indoor cat that wanted to actually go outside. My one friend’s cats will stand at open doors and window and look out, but won’t leave.
Of course, my other’s friends cat had been an indoor cat all his life, and didn’t like been taken outside. My friend needed to take him to the vet, and decided to attach a leash to his collar and just walk him out to the car. Once he got outside, the cat expressed his views on this by promptly walking up my friend’s body, perching on his head, and howling. It took several minutes to get the cat off, mainly because I was on the ground laughing.
Let us know: A. if you find the cat, and B. what happened with the roommate.
But mostly A.
Any word on the cat, yet?
Nothing yet 
Our two girls are mostly indoors (I take them out on leashes in summer). They try to escape all the time. You get used to it. Jim’s cat doesn’t usually go far if she escapes; my cat runs down the sidewalk, tail straight up in the air (her favourite game is “chase,” the little poobrain).
Hope you find the lost moggy.
We recently moved into an honest to goodness house, after having our cats for 9 years in apartments, and only seeing outside through 19th floor windows.
They’ve both escaped, and spent the day and/or night outside. They’ve come back on their own with no coaxing. They’ll just be waiting by the back door meowing to be let in. It’s amazing that even after never being outside, there’s still that bit of instinct.
I’ve shared this story before, but it is topical.
My dearest Pookie is a very “special needs” cat. He has poor eyesight (possibly glaucoma) and poor coordination. Little to no fine motor skills. He has full-on (spin in cirlces, urine spraying, smack his head on the floor, bite his own foot or whatever is nearby) seizures about twice a month. He has this thing about any closed doors that he is used to being open. He hurls himself at them…THUD…and then slides down them claws first…SCRIIIITCH. Repeatedly.
Despite it all, he is very zen and loves everything and everyone around him unconditionally, even inanimate objects(yes, even the doors) but especially blankets, which he likes to dry-hump on occasion, even though he’s fixed. I think the masturbation is a key variable to his zen-like state. All-in-all, he is the undeniable linchpin in our amazingly well-adjusted zoo of 2 lesbians, 2 dogs, and 4 cats.
Every once in a while, he gets the hankering to make a dash “toward the light” through the open front door. Usually he is content for a supervised 2 minute jaunt around the porch, and then he’s ready to head back inside.
I often compare his style of moving from one place to another as being akin to those little wheeled toys that go in a straight line until they bump into something, reorient in a slightly different angle, and then move forward in a straight line again.
So this one time a few years back, when I was living with housemates, he gave us the slip. I think we must’ve been moving furniture into the house or something, and he got misplaced in the chaos. A deeply disturbing few hours later, I found him under the car occupying the carport of the house nextdoor. I had been frantically calling for him from the front yard, when I finally heard his mournful meow (he very very very rarely ever makes any sort of noise) and found him. I think he had thought that house was our’s, but got all confused when there was no door to the kitchen from the carport as he had been expecting.
A few months later he somehow gave us the slip again, totally unnoticed. It was quite some time after coming home from work that it registered in my brain that he was missing. The two days that followed were absolutely horrible for me, because I knew how handicapped he was even in the protective bubble of my home. I couldn’t imagine what awful fate he might meet out in the big bad world. I called and called for him at all hours of the day and night, searching all over the neighborhood, over and over. Nothing. Then one night I let myself fall into despair, sobbing and snotting everywhere until I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I woke up the next morning to find him sitting quietly in the corner, staring off into space as usual. I was almost physically ill with relief, and began wondering if he’d been locked in a closet somewhere, except that I’d checked them all about 10 times a day while looking for him. Turns out that he’d awoken one of my housemates at about 3am the night before with his THUD…SCRIIIITCH…THUD. Seems he’d finally managed to find the right carport with the door in the right place.
And the moral of this story, children, is that if Pookie can find his way home, any kitty can.
Everyone has offered good advice for finding the cat. I’ll chime in with everyone else and mention you should wrangle your roommate into getting that cat fixed. My family has owned many cats over the years, and the only ones who would fight you to get out the door were the ones who weren’t fixed. They want to get laid. My husband and I own two indoor-only cats, and never have a problem with them trying to get out. One occasionally greets us at the door, but has never tried to slip by us, even if we leave the door open. They both enjoy sitting and looking out of windows, but neither have any interest in being outdoors. They’re both spayed. One is a little freaky around strangers, and could dart out the door if sufficiently frightened, but it’s obviously a last resort for her. She’ll choose her “special” hiding places first (the ones that took us a long time to figure out). If she got out, she’d probably have a heart attack.
Lucky you. I can just picture you on your front porch, shouting her name, hoping she’ll hear it and come home.
She is truly a strangely natured cat. The cutest face possible, with a permanent milk mustache under her nose. She hides when company comes, and so unless people have stayed for a few days to catch a glimpse of her shadow, they may not even believe we have her.
We met when Edlyn and I lived in our apartment, saving our down payment for our house. I was working one day, when I heard a what sounded like a distress call. Looking out the window, I saw her. She was a small kitten, perched on her haunches, singing to our front door.
‘Damn!’ I thought. ‘More wild cats.’
I opened the door to shoo her away, and she meowed at me. Sat perfectly still and meowed at me. For some reason, this endeared me to her. ‘Naive little critter’, I thought.
As it happened, just by the door, we had some old cat food that Jane would no longer eat. I tossed a morsel to her, which she chased down and devoured. Even how she ate was cute. This went on for three or four more days, until she was eating from the top step.
By now, Edlyn had joined the rituals, and on the final day, opened the door wide. Jezzie came inside, jumped up on a dinetter chair, and fell asleep. She’s never been outside again since, except to be transported from place to place, and has no interest in anything going on “out there”.
She was lucky we took her in because a couple weeks later, she began bleeding from both ends. We rushed her to the vet, who saved her life. Now, she’s very healthy and wary of anyone but me and my wife.
Might sound a little weird, but have the owner go out, run around and look for that cat without wearing deodorant, making sure to work up a sweat. Then leave the shirt outside the door. I did that when my cat got trapped outside accidentally, and she found her way back a few days later. I don’t know if it was because of that, but it couldn’t have hurt.
I left the patio door open, too, so she could just stroll in if she found her way home. And she did.
I also put food and water out there, and IIRC her litter.
Odd semi-related story. I have 2 cats, and they’re always curious to go outside. They’ll always try to get out if I leave the door open for more than a second or two. So one day I guess I didn’t close my door all the way or something, and I came home, and it had come open a few inches. And there they were, just sitting inside, looking out the open doorway, but not going anywhere. Like they knew they weren’t supposed to.
Be sure that you’ve registured your current address with your particular microchip company. Unless you stay current with the company, the only way that a shelter can track you down when they pick up your errant cat is to call the company and find out which vet hospital bought the lot of chips that included your chip number, then call up the clinic and see if they have a current address. If you haven’t been into the vet for a few years, their info could be out of date. Or, the shelter folks might get lazy. Either way, leaves your kitty SOL.
provided as general info, not to denegrate the loyalty of your cat or veterinary clinic in particular
Get a female in heat cat.
Play back a cat yowl, if you can’t get the female in heat cat.
I don’t know how you can stand the smell in your house. It must be terrible stinky, with a fully functional male cat in the house.
Update: The cat is back!
He showed up at the back door, meowing, and was let in. He appears none the worse for wear.
One really has to wonder what he was doing this whole time. Did he know how to get back all along and just wanted to get some? Did he find his way all the way to my roommate’s old place (in the same city) and back? How did he know to recognize the back door, as he’d never been outside it?
In any case, I’m glad he’s OK.
Yay! Glad the little guy is back home where he belongs. Hopefully, the thick-skulled roommate has learned a lesson from all this and will be more careful in the future. Next time might not go as well.
Woohoooo! The homing pigeon instinct is stong with this one.
Good to hear, Max, good to hear!
Now that he is home (hurrah!!) a trip to the vet is in order. Get him fixed. Explain to your roommate that removing the testicles of the cat does not remove the testicles of the owner.
You’re really lucky the cat isn’t spraying. It is an awful odor and very hard to get rid of.
He will be a lot less likely to go walkabout if he’s neutered. If he doesn’t go walkabout he won’t get hit by a car, or eaten by grues, or get into fights, or >insert horrible thing that happened to a cat you know here<.
I’m glad he’s safely home.
More than a week! Eghad man! What the heck was that fucking cat doing the whole time?
Probably.
That’s terrific news. I’m so glad he’s home safe and sound. I’ll bet you all sleep well tonight 