Dan's Papers - June 26, 2009 - When a Stray Cat

Last month a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she'd lost her cat. He's a gorgeous Maine Coon who gets to go in and out of the house on his own. One day he just never came home. She was distraught and searched the neighborhood, posting signs and talking to workers at a house going up near hers. Nobody had any good news. After several anxious days, one of the workers admitted to taking her cat home and brought him back. He was in perfect shape but happy to be home. We all breathed a sigh of relief, and I had a flashback.

When I was a young girl, we got a kitten from some friends around the block. She was a sweet, calico girl. My sister and I couldn't agree on a name, and she went nameless till she had her first litter of kittens, and then she became Mother Cat. So we had Blackie and Mother - I know, not terribly original, but we made up for that with our third cat Spinky. I'll talk about that in another column perhaps. Mother sort of became "my" cat - she slept with me almost every night, and if she had been outside at my bedtime, she would come around later and scratch at my second story window, and I'd wake up and let her in.

When Mother was about four or five years old, we got two dogs. My sister and I were thrilled - Mother Cat was not and she made that clear. We had some very anxious days while we kept her in the house yet separate from the puppies. She didn't want to sleep with me and didn't eat much. Finally after a few days, we had to try and let her go back to her schedule and started letting her out. For a week she would show up at my window, late at night, in the wind, in the rain and cry to come in. She would sleep with me and sneak out early the next morning and go right outside again. She spent NO time in the house or near the dogs.

One night Mother Cat didn't come to my window, and there was no sign of her the next day either. This went on for a few days. We walked the neighborhood, calling her and knocking on neighbors' doors. We even ran the can opener out the back door, a sound that would normally make her come running. Nothing. She was just gone. I cried myself to sleep for 10 days.

Thankfully my mother wouldn't give up and after staking out our backyard for hours she spotted our pretty, little calico and followed her. She was living with some neighbors, a block away, an elderly couple who we'd talked to just a week before asking if they'd seen our beloved cat. A confrontation ensued and my mother insisted they stop feeding our cat (French toast apparently), as her youngest daughter hadn't slept in over a week. They relented, and in a day or so Mother Cat reappeared at our backdoor hungry and ready for surrender. There was no need - she ruled the house over the dogs for the rest of their lives and outlived them both by about 5 years.

I've had my own experiences with stray cats and animals, and it's always a bit tricky. However, I've also found it's really not so hard to figure out if an animal is a loved, cared for pet. Simple outward signs, such as being well-fed, groomed, not skittish, indicate that this animal has a home and people who are frantically looking for it. There's also more advanced methods like having the animal scanned for an ID chip. It's also fairly easy to put a call into your local animal shelters and animal control to find out if a lost pet has been reported. I have only good things to say about people who are willing to take in and help animals they find. Maybe we just need to make sure the animal really needs our help first.