until you are trying to find your cat … your black cat.
I have had a stressful morning. Some back story is needed. Kinda long, but you can always skip to the last two paragraphs.
The boyfriend has been living with me for a month now. It was unplanned. We have discussed living together before and both agree it would not work. I have a lot of pets and he doesn’t really like pets. He tolerates them when he visits but he doesn’t want to live with them. On my side of it, he does a lot of things that drive me nuts which would probably eventually drive me homicidal* after a while. And sometimes, like Garbo, I just want to be alone … except for the cats, dog and birds. So he usually just comes over and stays overnight for a day or two depending on his days off that week.
But the unplanned happened, he had an electrical fire in his apartment building and it was deemed unfit for habitation until it was fixed. I offered to let him stay with me until he found a new place or they fixed the old one. Well, the managers of the apartment building said it would be fixed … eventually. So here we are a month later and he’s still here and all they have done is fix the electricity at his apartment.
It’s been getting me stressed. I normally don’t sleep well but I sleep even worse now. Odd because when he just visits I usually sleep better when he’s here. I have been sick twice in the past month, most recently either a second cold or sinusitis and some GI upset. I figure that’s due to stress. After this morning’s events I realized that a lot of the stress was due to him mixing with the pets and expecting something bad to happen because he does not take due precautions that a pet owner would and this morning it did happen.
He woke me up at 7 am to tell me a cat got out. My cats are all indoor cats, some of them are declawed (no debates, please, I don’t do that anymore anyway), having any of my cats get out is one of my biggest fears. Every time someone posts here that one of their pets got out I worry about mine and what would I do if that happened. I always have horrible thoughts of cars, dogs, other cats or bad people getting hold of my baby. I work at an animal hospital so I see too many worse case scenarios.
I asked him how this happened, he said something about the dog chasing a cat as he was opening the door. The bf does not get the concept of doors for keeping pets inside. When he opens the door he opens it wide and opens the screen door wide at the same time. Me, the pet owner, looks for animals, opens one door slightly starting to step through the door while slowly opening the screen door and closing the other door, all the while watching for animals. I don’t think it was the dog chasing the cat, I think it was the dog trying to follow him through the wide open doors and the cat getting in the middle and seeing a wide open space to run through away from the dog. He was trying to keep the dog from running out and the cat scooted by him. He tried to grab him but missed.
He told me it was the gray one with white paws, that’s Riff. Riff is tough but he is front declawed and he’s never been outside so he’s likely to be just as much a scaredy cat as any of the others. So I throw on some pants, shoes and a jacket and go outside looking for him. I am worried and on the verge of tears. I try the north side of the house first because he said he ran that way. Then I tried the back yard and I found him wedged between my chain link fence and the neighbor’s wood fence on the north side, conveniently next to a strand of Mother-In-Law tongue (a very pointy plant).
I ran back to the house for a couple slip leashes and a blanket to throw over him. The boyfriend tried to come help but I told him to stay away because the cat was afraid of him. When I got back Riff had scooted farther back toward the middle of the pointy plants. He started backing up so I went to where he was heading and stuck my hand through the fence and he let me pet him so I slipped one of the leashes over his head. He decided to start moving then and I quickly passed the leash through the fence so I could pull him over. I didn’t want to strangle him but I didn’t want him taking off. So as the leash tightened he started to stand up on his back legs and lean against the chain link fence. Then I was able to reach over the fence and grab him by the scruff and pull him over. I held him close in my arms and he didn’t fight me.
I got him back in the house and he didn’t run and hide, as I said he’s a tough cat and now that he was safe he was unfazed. So I fed them all breakfast and noticed another one missing. The all black cat, Jack. Jack does not miss out on any meals. Jack is a big cat, about 12 pounds (not fat! Just big), but he meows like a kitten and he’s one of my sweetest and the only one who gives me Eskimo kisses. Needless to say he’s one of my favorites. Yeah, I love them all but who can resist a cat with a kitten mew and Eskimo kisses? He’s a good cat. I looked everywhere. I looked in every nook and cranny - I even used a flashlight, I called his name. I rattled the food dish. No, this was not right, he would not miss a meal. Some of the other kitties were spooked but they still came to the food dishes.
I asked the boyfriend if he was sure that only one got out he said he only saw the gray one get out. All the relief I felt from finding Riff was gone and I was back to stressed. I started looking outside again. I checked the back yard, the side yard, the neighbor’s yard. I came back and checked the house again. I rattled the food dish and called his name. I cried a lot. I checked the house again. Then I grabbed my phone, keys, flashlight and food dish and took off around the block. I checked in any yards that looked safe to enter. I called his name and shook the food dish. I cried some more. I got scratched on the cheek by a Bouganvillea. I asked anyone I saw if they saw a big black cat. To no avail. I decided to go back home for some coffee and to make some flyers to pass around the neighborhood with my phone number. I wasn’t sure I had a good picture of Jack, since he’s black most pictures appear to be a big black blob (he’s not fat!) with 2 glowing spheres near the top of the blob.
Anyway, I was still crying. I went in the kitchen to make some coffee and came back to the living room and saw a black cat. Well, I thought I did but it disappeared just as rapidly. My eyes were teary maybe it was the all gray cat? Nope, that’s Digit and I see him over in the hallway. So I go check where I taut I taw the puddy tat. I have 2 TV’s in the living room. The larger one in the black cabinet is not in use because it doesn’t have an antenna and I don’t currently have cable so I use a newer digital TV with an antenna that I have on a rolling TV stand in front of the other TV. I went to look behind the black TV cabinet and I see a black cat peeking out at me. I start crying again. I double-checked the location of the all gray cat, it still wasn’t him, it was definitely Jack. Jack, the black cat, hid in the black cabinet, next to the large black TV in a dark corner of the black cabinet. I swear I checked there but he must of had his eyes shut so I couldn’t see him.
Along with all this, yesterday I sent some bloodwork off on my 19 year old cat whom I suspect is hyperthyroid or having renal issues although he is not yet sick, just losing weight. And my gray cat, has an eye problem which I have been treating. I have been up to my ears in kitty worries. I am still stressed. I have a headache from crying. My sinuses which were finally starting to clear up are all stuffed up again. My nerves are frayed I don’t think I will get any work done today and I may get rhomboidal* on my bf when he gets home. But at least the kitties are home and fine. To eliminate some possible stress I think I need to either get rid of every nook and cranny possible hidey hole in my home (which will make the cats unhappy) or I just buy Jack a glow-in-the-dark collar with blinking lights and GPS, just to be sure.
So how was your morning?
*Spell check offers rhomboidal as an alternative word to homicidal. I think from now on when anyone gets on my nerves I am going to tell them they are making me rhomboidal.
