<p>Hey ZM , so glad to hear your kitty made it home! With all the horror stories you hear it’s always great to hear a happy ending.</p>
<p>In a catalog this winter I saw a tiny video cam that you could attach to your cat’s collar and it would record clips as the animal moves around. I always thought it would be very interesting to see where our cat goes. When my husband takes the dog for a walks he goes along from bush to bush, porch to porch the entire route. I’ve often wondered what and where this cat does when we’re not watching him. When I was growing up we had one that “left” one day and didn’t come back. We assumed he must have been sick and went somewhere to die which is not uncommon with “outdoor cats.” Almost a year later my mom got up in the morning and he was sitting on the porch waiting to come in…as if he’d never been gone. I always wonder what the heck he did that year. Cats do have an amazing ability to “come home” on their own…yes…cats are brazen as one poster described.</p>
<p>
That’s horrifying. I would have needed therapy.</p>
<p>
I’m very sorry. That must have broken your heart.</p>
<p>
Why would you? They all speak human fluently, right?</p>
<p>Thanks again for the good wishes everyone. I was at work yesterday when she first disappeared and I thought I’d lose my mind. It’s great to have people to talk these things through with.</p>
<p>zoosermom, I’m glad your kitty is home safe and sound.</p>
<p>RebelCats, those are sad stories. We had a cat that was a little different. I don’t know what was wrong with him, but he just wasn’t like other cats, kind of clumsy and extremely fearful. I adopted him as a kitten because I felt so sorry for the poor thing, and I didn’t think anyone else would ever take him. We had him for 6 years. It wasn’t unusual to not see him for the whole day, but every night he would curl up next to me in bed. One night he didn’t come to bed, and the next day we found him behind a desk under a window sill, stiff as a board. We think he must have fallen and got his neck wedged between the wall and the desk. So, kitties can have accidents at home too.</p>
<p>So glad kitty came home! I hope she didn’t have a good time, or she may decide to try to escape again. Definitely get that collar & tag thing going pronto!</p>
<p>We got our 14 year old cat from a shelter when she was almost a year old. I don’t know how she survived there because I have never known a cat who hates being confined as much as this cat (and I’ve had cats all my life, usually 2 at a time). We live on a side street in a neighborhood, not much car traffic and an 8 acres plot of woods behind us, surrounded by houses. Perfect place for a cat who likes to venture outdoors. When she was young she’d go out at 9 am and we wouldn’t see her again for 12 hours, although she usually came home at night. Now she still looks young, and she’s kept her girlish figure, but she won’t stay outside for more than a few minutes at the time. She goes out the front door or the garage door, and 5 minutes later wants in the back door. And yet… she is still CONSTANTLY yowling at the door, wanting to go out. 5 minutes later she’s scratching to get back in. 5 minutes later: “LET ME OUT!” She doesn’t ever go into the bathrooms unless you’re in there with the door shut - then she NEEDS to get in NOW and will yowl and claw until the door is open.</p>
<p>I don’t think my cat is an outdoor cat. Or an indoor cat. She’s a through-the-door cat.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m so glad your kitty came back safe and sound! It’s a dangerous world out there . . . I would be dying a thousand deaths by panic if one of my boys got out.</p>
<p>Our indoor cat got out one day. We spent two days scouring the neighborhood for him to no avail. We were also having our driveway and front steps redone.</p>
<p>We were about to give up, and my d was in mourning for him, when I stood at the front door (inside) and heard some meowing. My husband said, no, you’re crazy. Then my daughter heard it too. We went outside and discovered that our boy had crawled under the stoop where the stairs had been! He had come home! And he went to the place he though he could get in, but the stairs weren’t there anymore! Nothing we could do would get him out. We had to pull up the floor on the stoop and push him out with a broom handle into my daughter’s waiting arms.</p>
<p>But talk about timing - the cement stairs were set to be put back in the following day! If I hadn’t heard him that night, we wouldn’t have been able to get him out!</p>
<p>He lived many more happy years with us, never trying to get out again. (Of course, the stoop flooring still needs to be fixed . . . )</p>
<p>zm, so happy kitty’s back!</p>
<p>Oh My! - this has turned into a horror thread with all these tragic stories. My dog incident traumatized me but it had a happy ending, and he has never been in my car since without being in his crate so lesson learned.</p>
<p>Holy cow, Chedva–your story is like something by Poe! A friend of mine’s toy breed dog had a similar escape when he managed to fall into some stairs under renovation in their house.</p>
<p>We got our cat microchipped when it went to live in D’s apartment.</p>
<p>I vividly remember when I was about 5 years old and stopped at a light while riding with my dad. I saw a cat in the car stopped next to us climb up and and jump out the partially open back seat window. I tried to explain to my dad what had happened, but by then traffic had started moving again. For years I wondered what those people must have thought when they got to their destination and found they had no cat.</p>
<p>Glad to hear that kitty is home!!!</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Zmom, I just saw this thread this morning, and was <em>so</em> worried as I was reading it, until I got to the happy ending! I’m very relieved. I would have been a complete wreck in your position; this is the kind of thing I have bad dreams about. My Ziggy is an indoor cat, too, and has never been outside except to go to the vet.</p>
<p>I guess one of the advantages of living in an apartment is that the only place Ziggy can escape to (and he tries whenever I come home) is the hall outside my apartment door. I think he views it as his extra playpen; a place he can gallop back and forth unimpeded.</p>
<p>I’m not really worried about my impending move, since I’ll have him securely in his carrier before I set foot outside.</p>
<p>Anyway, I like happy endings like this. And I’m very sorry for all of you who’ve had such sad stories to tell of endings that weren’t so happy.</p>
<p>Glad to hear kitty is back home and safe
I have had my indoor cats get out on more than one occasion and thankfully has always ended well…
And I have also had more than one stray find their way to us and adopt us ( but they are not allowed indoors )
Just in the last few days, I have spotted a stray calico and told my husband that this one will wander down to our house and probably give birth to kittens in my garage.
Coyotes are near us now…my neighbor hunts out behind our homes ( bow not guns ) and he has watched them from his tree perch…I know that the outdoor kitties are at risk…</p>
<p>zooser- I’m so glad you have your kitten back. What a relief!</p>
<p>When my kitty was about 5 years old, we moved from another state to our current state. One of the movers left the door open, and my MIL opened the kitten’s carrying crate. She got out, and was seen running out of the house. No one even told me until I got home from work, and I was completely frantic. She didn’t know the neighbor, or anything. I searched and searched, but I wasn’t even familiar with the place. A few days later, I opened the cabinet underneath the sink that was on the second floor. And there she was ! A little bedraggled and shell-shocked, but home. We have no idea how she crawled up through the plumbing, but there was a hole in the back of the cabinet and she’d found it. And she lived with us for 10 more years before she passed away one night, suddenly, but at home.</p>