Those of you who have read my brain droppings for a while know that we have a bit of a menagerie here. We have two dogs, Bluegrass and Shadow. We also have three cats: Koshka, Annya, and Timmy. Add to that a pond full of goldfish, numerous chipmunks and squirrels in the yard, and we've got quite a collection of non-simian mammals in the household.
This morning, I realized a member of our little group hadn't been seen in a couple of days. Koshka's made a habit of running out whenever she can get us to open the door. She got past me Thursday morning when I left for work, and that was the last anyone saw her. Irish Woman and I mentioned it to each other last night, and we realized that neither of had seen her.
I went for a quick walk around the yard to see if she'd come to me, but no luck. This morning, I searched the neighborhood, but still didn't see her. Calls to animal control were less than helpful. Irish Woman checked with all the neighbors, but they hadn't seen her.
We were worried about her because it's been hot as the knobs of hell lately, and she's basically a house cat. Add to that our location near several large streets and the propensity of some of our neighbor kids to be cruel to stray cats, and we were concerned.
We had decided that if she didn't show up by Tuesday morning we'd go to animal control in person and see if she'd been picked up.
As I was doing some maintenance on the weed trimmer this evening, Irish Woman spotted Koshka coming up the street like her hair was on fire. She came up the driveway when she heard us call her, but hid out under the truck. I crawled under, got her out, and brought her in the house. She immediately hid in the basement, where we can hear her giving the other cats and the dogs three rations of hell.
I keep her vaccinations and flea repellent up to date, but I'm going to have to keep her in. Two nights out is too much. I'm glad she came home, but I could beat her for making me think of how I was going to tell Girlie Bear her cat had run away.
3 comments:
That's always a tough time. We had a pet run away the night our second daughter was born. The breed that she was, if anyone found her she was most likely kept. Still, it's all the other possibilities that make you worry.
Cats will be cats. You don't own or control them, as far as they're concerned. I'm afraid that sometimes, they'll do things that lead to bad, even terminal, consequences for themselves - and there's not a darn thing you can do about it.
Reality sometimes sucks . . .
Those were the scenarios that were going through my mind until she came galloping up the driveway, 45er.
Peter, I know I'm just a couple of steps above a prey animal to the cats. I've been used as a tackling dummy and ambush practice target quite often. I guess the trade off for having a pet thats independent and keeps you on your toes is that they will occasionally break curfew and worry you.
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