Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: Cleo-Kitty scares the hell out of us... 8
We start turning the apartment upside down (quietly, so as to not wake the Confessor snoozing in the living room). No sign of Cleo anywhere, not even after an hour of looking. I tried rattling a bag of her favorite food, her toys, etc. We called her, to no avail.
Then it occurs to me that the doorway to the balcony is half-opened, tilted inwards (most windows in Europe are designed to open either all the way hinged at the side, or tilted inwards about 5-10 degrees or so, hinged at the bottom). We've left it open on occasion like that for years, and she's never tried to get out that way, but there's always a first time. (There is also the danger that she tries to get out, jumps through the gap, gets caught and is crushed in the window -- it happens with some cats.) While you can buy protective grates to bolt next to such windows, we're not allowed to drill into the window frames as per our rental contract.
Normally I wouldn't worry about it, because she's terrified of the outdoors. Literally. She hates being outside. But the fact that we'd torn the apartment to pieces looking for her, and the fact that we're in the middle of packing for the move (which freaks more sensitive cats out), had me a bit panicky.
So I go out on to the balcony with a flashlight and peer outside into the rain, scanning the courtyard...and spot a dead bird, its chest ripped out and feathers everywhere. Obviously a cat was here.
I go downstairs, my heart sinking, and find disturbed soil under one of our windows, also opened in the tilt position (though the gap on it is much smaller). We live on the first floor ("second floor" in American terms), from which a cat can easily survive a jump, especially onto soft soil. I go all around the courtyard, and no sign of Cleo-Kitty.
BoE is in the meantime in an utter state of panic and insists on going out in the rain in her jammies and a coat. I manage to stop her for a while, and get to work making a "Missing" poster. BoE sneaks out on me. Comes back ten minutes later, no Cleo.
I dig out the paperwork for Cleo's identity chip implant and call the central hotline, dictating the ID number over the phone. I hang up, and start to call her vet's hotline, when I hear a squealed "CLEO!!!" from the bedroom.
BoE had apparently put away some T-shirts in my drawer earlier this evening, left it open...turned around for a moment... then closed the drawer.
Guess where Cleo was.
felines! (Score:1)
Re:felines! (Score:1)
Good lord what are you feeding your cat?!
Ethelraed:
I've JE'd my cat losings in the past so its all old hat. Glad you have an RFID cat, just in case.
Re:felines! (Score:1)
Shes been on antibiotics for a few weeks...they are really messing with her disgestive system
scary... (Score:2)
Glad you found your cat, though. Don't forget to call off the alert.
When I was a kid ... (Score:2)
When we finally found it, it was reluctant to go out. Air conditioning, I guess ...
Apartment cat? (Score:2)
Now that we have a house and she's experiencing the ground floor for the first time, things are changing. She sits in the window next to the front door to watch the birds in the tree right outside. It didn't take her long to figure out the spatial relationships between window-door-tree and now she's quite interes
My mother's cat... (Score:2)
A few years back... (Score:2)
While visiting my wife to be, we were tidying up in a backroom and had her three kittens running around us playing. When we had cleaned up the room we grabbed the kittens and closed the door. Oddly enough, we had three kittens before starting to clean, now there were only two. We went back in the room and started looking. Opening boxes, moving furniture, opening drawers and cabinets.
No cat to be found.
Was that a meow? I think it was... sounds like it came from over there. But we just looked there. There's