Rescue Kitten's big adventure

My primary motivation for this post is to publicize this site:

Cats in the Bag - General Pet Searching Tips

The author's e-mail address bounced and frankly; given what her site is for I don't blame her for disabling it. My guess is she was flooded with calls for help.

My thank you e-mail to Pauline (should she ever see it):

"I would like to thank you for your pet search tips Web site. It got me through a lot these past couple of days.

Wednesday evening my indoor only young male cat escaped out the front door in an unfortunate tangle with my dog; he didn’t mean to run, he just got on the wrong end of the legs. I looked at him in horror as he panicked and darted. I made one attempt to dash after him and somehow had the sense to pull back and run in for some canned food. I returned back outside and he was entirely gone.

It rained all night.

Thursday was spent significantly canvassing the neighborhood and passing out fliers. I live in a rural area and I back into wilderness. I had spent enough time on you site to have some hope that he was actually very near by. It was hard to believe though; very hard. It was hard to deal with the fact that he simply wasn’t calling back.

When all was said and done he was located Thursday night at dusk about 20 - 30 feet from the door he came out of. He was under a giant rhododendron that backed into even thicker foliage with apple trees behind it. I had spent a lot of time in the apple trees because I thought that was the direction he ran but never got a peep. The apple trees were backed by a loud creek (you never realize how much you hate living next to a creek until you are calling for you cat – desperate for a reply).

People ask me if I think he was there the entire time. To be honest; I suspect he was. When I did find him; there was nothing about how he looked or acted that suggested he was just roaming around enjoying himself. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t willing to reply to me until that much time had passed. I was set up to sleep out for the night and do the “simply sitting” method. As it got dark I couldn’t stand it and did one more round of light calling. I got a response. Notably he would only respond when I was in front of him and not behind him in the apple trees. I think this is because in front of him was soft grass…behind him was twig and branches and I couldn’t walk without cracking them.

Once I had a visual on him it took about 20 minutes of laying flat on the ground and light talking until he came close enough in that I could be sure of my grab. He became far more chatty with me once I laid on the ground.

He immediately used the litter box and ate. It is about 24 hours later now and he is still sleeping and clingy. Behaviorally he is definitely different right now. He is not as playful but he also seems really tired.

Thank you again."

I would also like to acknowledge the Feral Cat Coalition who was still available at an odd time on a week evening for my sister to go over and get a live pet trap for me to set the first night he went missing. Description:

"Feral Cat Coalition
Redmond, WA, 425.883.7629
Offers a clearinghouse of advice and information about feral cats, and lends traps to assist with trap-neuter-return. Does not provide shelter for feral cats."

Uncontrolled cat breeding and over-population is a pretty daunting problem for anyone to take on and the woman running the Feral Cat Coalition is pretty amazing for making herself readily available like that.