Back in October I posted about having to confine my eldest cat in a large cage complex, for his own safety; the post and resulting thread are here. In the intervening months Squash has thrived in his private realm, been happy and eating well, using all three levels of his tower, and playing wildly with toys for the first time in years. All seemed well, and then…
Last night he got out of his cage complex!
It was suppertime for the cats. When I went to put Squash’s food into his dining area, he wasn’t waiting eagerly for it. He wasn’t in his lair. I moved to the side to see if he was in his litter box, not visible from where I was standing – and the lower door next to it was open! Yikes!
I started looking frantically for the little rascal and saw him darting toward the basement stairs, then he doubled back between the cage and the bookcases along the wall. I almost got him but he squirted away under the dining table, pursued by Peanut, with Schooner and Stanley torn between demanding their delayed supper and going after the prey they’d been thwarted from pursuing for so long.
Squash bolted from under the table and zipped around the corner toward the basement stairs again. After shutting Schooner in the half bath with his supper and putting Peanut and Stanley’s food down, trying to distract them from the chase, I followed Squash’s assumed path more slowly, went down to the basement, and couldn’t find him in any of his usual hideouts. Had he managed to run upstairs instead? So I trudged up to the second floor, knelt down and searched my bedroom closet – nope, not hiding behind the clothing; nope, not under the bed. Heaved myself back upright, trudged up to the third floor and looked under the twin beds there – nope, not under there, either.
Trudged back down to the basement and looked everywhere again – nope. Trudged back up to the first floor, into the living room. By now I’m huffing and puffing, my heart’s pounding with worry and fatigue, and where the hell can he be? I’d already looked behind my recliner, another favorite hiding place when he was uncaged. Knelt down and looked under the couch – nope. Lurched across the room on my knees and looked under the loveseat – YES! There he was, crouched fearfully underneath in one corner!
Okay, great, he’s found, he’s cornered, and all I have to do is recapture him. Right – Somehow reach under the six-inch-high edge of the loveseat, flat on my flabby belly, far enough in to get him by the scruff and drag him out. I kept trying to slip my right hand past his head to his shoulders – couldn’t make it, just couldn’t quite reach that far. He’s huddling back, hissing when I grope with futile fingertips at his shoulder.
Finally, in desperation, I reached over his head, got a grip on the tiny bit of scruff I could reach right behind his ears, ruthlessly dragged him out, heaved up onto my knees without losing my tenuous hold, got a better grip on his scruff with my left hand, used my right hand to lever myself onto my feet, then grabbed his hind feet with my right hand to forestall flailing, and hustled him back into his cage through the upper feeding door (I’d shut the lower door right away, thank goodness, kept the other cats out). Then I lurched on trembling legs back to the living room, collapsed into the recliner, and just sprawled there breathing till I stopped shaking and my heart rate came down from the stratosphere.
Poor Squash! He actually didn’t fight his extraction much, or being carried off and reinserted into captivity. In fact, within a few minutes he had calmed right down and was starting in on his supper. Within a short time later he was cheerful and purring and wallowing in skritches. Clearly he did not enjoy his brief escape to freedom.
So how did he get the door open? That part of the cage complex is a dog crate with those latches that have to be lifted up horizontal, then slid sideways, and there are two of them. I’m going to assume that I absentmindedly did not properly slide their bent ends all the way to the locking area when I cleaned his litter box in the morning, and that he must have bumped up against the door shortly before suppertime and knocked it open. The alternative – that he (or less likely one of the other felines) has figured out how to work the latches is just too dismal to contemplate – though I am thinking about getting a carabiner or something like that to beef up security. Just in case.
So all’s well that ends well, but holy guacamole what a scare – for both of us!
