I’ve been meaning to post this for over a week now, so here we go.
Day 1
On Sunday, May 28th, Buddy escaped. He ripped a hole in a screen window on my desk. I got home and discovered the hole not long after it happened, as Mike and I pretty quickly found him underneath the big tree on my front lawn. I went out with his treats and got down to climb under the tree, but as soon as I shook his treats he bolted. We proceeded to chase him around the house twice, but realized he was WAY too fast for us. Last we saw him, he ran down the other side of the neighbor’s house and vanished.
Day 3
He turned up again two days later on the the 30th, where he made an appearance in the kitchen. As soon as he saw Mike, he bolted back out the door.
Day 5
On the 1st, I was sitting in my office and I heard the food bowl clank in the kitchen. By the time I got there to investigate, there was no cat. I then got devious and rigged the screen door so I could quickly close it from my desk in case I heard him inside again.
Day 6
The next night, I kicked it up a notch by setting up a webcam watching the back door so I could see if he came inside. Saw him twice that night, but both times I didn’t wait for him to get far enough inside and the door made a sound that spooked him before I could trap him.
Day 7
On June 3rd, Perry showed up with a live trap for me. Spent that night with the live trap setup in the kitchen and the webcam watching it. Saw him come in once, but he took one look at the trap and went into the other room and then right back out. I fell asleep on the couch that night, and was awoke at 1:30 in the morning when the trap went off. I caught one of the neighbor cats. He was not very pleased with me.
The next few nights we kept up with the live trap, and then without and didn’t see much.
Day 9
June 6th at 1:31am comes around, and he strolls on in and starts meowing for attention. He was very happy to see me, and has made no attempt to get back out since. Poor Buddy had burdocks stuck all through his tail. We had to cut the worst out with scissors. He had bug bites all over him, and several days Mike found two ticks on him. We got them both out and he’s had no signs of rings. He does have a wound on his tail that he wouldn’t let me get near for about a week. Then he randomly spent a morning pulling all the hair out from around it on his own, and now its healing nicely.
A few days after he came back, I made an interesting discovery. I hadn’t noticed before, but one of the neighbor’s cats looks JUST like Buddy. Like, from a distance, easily mistakable. I’m wondering now if the cat I kept seeing indoors on the cam wasn’t Buddy at all? And the few times we heard the food dish but didn’t see anything could have been ANY of the neighbor cats (there’s a whole gang of them). It makes me wonder though, as he’s made no attempt to get out again and he was so loving when he got home.
He’s home and very happy now. He’s much more cuddly than he used to be, and hardly leaves my side 🙂
