Yes, cat got away a couple of times. Within an hour of bringing the cat to the house (she was a gift from our landlady), we could not find HyperKitty. She had fallen behind the hot water heater in the closet. She was always trying to get out of the house. A few months after she was fixed, she succeeded, streaking out of the house after a bird, and didn’t come home for three days. Evidently this experience cured her, and HyperKitty hasn’t made a motion to go out since.
As everyone else has suggested, check shelters, vets. Put posters in the pet stores. Also, check with anyone in your area that does animal rehabilitation, or pet rescue societies. Sometimes (at least in this area), people who find a stray are loathe to take it to a shelter and will drop it off anywhere, figuring a cat is the same as an injured otter (and not have to pay a vet bill, either). We’ve ended up with several cats and dogs this way. It’s a long-shot, but perhaps someone may recognize your cat.
If one of my poor indoor kitties escaped, I would post a large reward - one large enough that every kid - and some adults - would be searching every bush, box, tree, or what ever for him or her. We lost a cat that escaped outdoors for only 3 hours, and in that time I had already started printing up reward posters - $250, no questions asked. When I opened up the door to start putting up notices, there he was.
Expensive? Yes, but sure to get people looking. And I love that cat.
Lost cats end up with people like me. I think they go out and find new friends to bring home. Last cat count is five, two brought and three resuced. They hav a plan, the trick is to not let me anywhere near them for about six months. This gets them through the when I catch it I’ll take it down to the animal shelter stage as “we can possibly have another cat”. However of cause I’ll feed it as I’m way too much of a softy to let it starve. Then after about six months I’m too attached to take it to possible death and we’ve got another cat and it can move on to the sofa.
I think we have reached saturation point now, ie the old cats are numerous enough and teritorial enough that now new cats can get near the place.
So if your cat goes missing chances are it with a big softy like me.
Funny how this thread was started on the very same day that my cat decided to make a break for the outside. She is only a year old, but I have never allowed her outside. On Wednesday, I left my living room window open because I was cleaning with chemicals and I was trying to air out the house. Big mistake! The screen is pulled out of one of the corners and I never got around to fixing it. The cat saw her opportunity and took it. Unfortunately for the cat, it was raining really hard at that time. She hopped out the window, stood on the ground for about two seconds and realized “holy shit, it’s wet out here!”, and jumped back into the window and hid in the basement for the rest of the day. I’m hoping she is cured of her curiousity.
Our 13 year old, 30 pounder got out when we were remodeling. He’s not really a cat, more like a bean bag chair with ears so we didn’t hold out much hope for his inner city survival skills. Three months later I’m walking through the living room, look left to the sliding glass door, and voila! There’s George sittin’ on the porch staring at me. We think he was living in the back yard and he only lost three pounds so he had to be eating somewhere.
We can only assume our three other cats were thumbing their noses at him when we weren’t looking
I hope you find your cat much sooner!
LOL! My neighbor needed a new name for his cat [2 yrs old, 28 lbs, HUGE! from the shelter]; for now, he called him ‘Rusty’, but he’s just not a ‘Rusty’ and your desciption fit perfectly! He is now ‘Beanbag’. Thank you.
[hijack]
Thanks, screech-owl. He also has no tail (another tragic kitty story) so he truly does look like a big bean bag. I also call him Lardo Calrissian (sp?) if anyone else needs to name a large cat…
[/hijack]
You didn’t mention… was said cat spayed or neutered?
2a) If not, are there a lot of wild/feral cats in the area? [I ask because my supervisor’s cat got out, and came back a week later after, shall we say, “hours of yowling fun”.]
If he was not neutered, when (I’m being positive here) he does come back, please get him neutered. It’ll save a lot of kittens, wildlife and sleepless nights (for you and the neighbors) in the future.
If he was, thank you, and I still hope you find him.
A few days ago I was walking to class from the Frat house when I saw a brother. He was holding an Alaskan Husky looking mongrel by the collar, awkwardly walking along. He called me over and I held the dog while he went and found some rope. He said he was going to class when he saw this dog sleeping in the bushes. He woke it up and looked at the tags and the owner lived a few blocks away, so he was walking it back to our house (about 3 blocks) to call them. After he got the rope, the job was much easier. He got back, called the owner, and took it over. Apparently it’d been gone a few days.
I put out flyers last night in the surrounding neighborhood. Got a call this a.m. from the neighbor directly behind me saying she saw my cat in her back yard yesterday (!) so apparently he is still in the vicinity. My cat was neutered, most certainly, so he can’t be in search of female companionship. I haven’t heard about or seen any feral cats around here. My biggest fear is he’ll be hit by a car, or if he does manage to cross the highway he’ll be lost in an enormous housing development. This whole thing is so frustrating, I could just scream!!! If he turns up, I’ll let you all know. My mother had lots of outdoor cats in her life and a lot of hers disappeared for weeks at a time but eventually came back. So I’m hopeful.
