Cat related request

[annwfyn]

This may sound daft, but any of you out there who have cats with outdoor access, could you tell me if your cats have ever vanished and then returned of their own accord, and if so, how long did they go missing for?

I'm not sure if this will soothe or agitate me more, but I think I've realised that one of my major reasons for panicking at the moment is I just don't know if this is normal or not. I don't know what my odds are on getting my cat back, so I'm working on a worse case scenario, and it may not be helping.

Comments

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Silly little fluff-cat was gone for several days. I was frantic, and put up posters all over Berinsfield. A couple of days after that, I got a phone call from a woman who said that someone of Cirrus's appearance had been jumping into her garden to eat the food she left out for her own cats.

I was in London at the time, so I sent Christi to go lure him into a cat-box with Tesco Finest Mozzarella.

Five doors down. Honestly.

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Current news is that a couple of people in the neighbourhood saw Madoc around 4 pm yesterday. A nice Russian lady told me (in broken English, which means this story is not complete) running out of the main public garden (there's a little garden at the back of our house, backing onto a big shared garden) looking scared, and mewling at numbers 15 & 16. No 15 say that he ran into their house yesterday around 4/5 ish, and ran upstairs and hid for a while. They weren't sure what to do, and got him some cat food, but when the front door was opened again he ran out.

No sighting since.

It sounds more like he's lost his way home as opposed to anything else, but I'm still fretting a fair bit, esp as no one has seen him today and he's never been out overnight before in his life!

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

In that case I suspect that something frightened him (maybe a dog in the shared garden, something like that), he panicked and is now lost.

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

That is the current assumption. In a slightly evil way I also took Myrddin over to the house where Madoc was last seen. His response to the area was to freak and hide under a car. I carried him the five steps back into the main garden, and he was fine. Well, a bit spooked - he ran straight back home immediately - but I'm fairly sure now that that area is just outside of the cats' comfort zone.

Now...how to find Madoc? He doesn't seem to be under any cars or behind any distbins in the area and isn't responding to having his name called (tho that might be fear). I'm beginning to think he must be in someone's house or something *continues to feel worried but at least as if progress is being made*

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

When he's hungry enough, he shall be found wandering the neighbourhood. Or taken in to a nearby vet. It might take time, though, because for that he'll need to be out and you looking for him at the same time, or he'll need to be out and seen by someone who knows you're looking for him, or it'll have to have been long enough for him to look sufficiently thin and pitiful that it's obvious to some kind stranger that he's hopelessly lost and not just having a wander.

When you get him back, it might be worth teaching him to mew on command. Apparently if they're hiding, even if they won't come out they'll often mew. I've got a big cat book with a chapter on training cats if you'd like to borrow it.

Admittedly, I'm preaching what I haven't practiced, but then my Fluffs didn't even know how to mew until two_nukes taught them :)

Re: Cirrus vanished once.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

BTW, sorry if I'm fixating on everything you say a bit. You're the only person I know who has ditzy pedigree cats instead of nice sensible moggies, so I'm kinda responding to that.