TheBanyanTree: Cat Lost & Found

[Tom Smith]

Always a good luck wish, a little apprehension giving a
treasured feline freedom to explore the world outside. 
"Giving" is the right word.  That's the feeling I have,
responding to their restlessness, though a more honest person
would confess to giving IN.  

Murphy, a 3-yr old adopted calico we adopted, loves to spend
the pre-dawn hours outside, and that's where she went October
2nd.  I saw her once about 8am, with a wild-look in her eyes
and she ran in the opposite direction.  I interpreted the look
as having more to do with "wild" than me.

That's the last I saw of her that day.  And the next and more
days beyond.   A sister of hers lives two houses away.  Another
calico.  They like each other's company.  No sign of Murphy
though.  I wondered if a bloodhound could be given an old
collar and track her..  My wife Barbara looked into that
and sure enough, for $1200 there is just such a service.  I
printed up posters, put them on telephone poles in the
neighborhood.  Barbara put an ad in the paper and one in
Craig's list with a picture.  The mail carrier said he'd be on
the lookout.

Barbara and I had both had past experiences of losing a cat
that never was seen again.  In sharing our latest lost cat
story with others though, we heard happier endings.  Some cats
just wandered back with their trademark nonchalance after going
behond the usual boundaries for a couple weeks.  We live near a
canyon inhabited by coyotes that have claimed cats.  Barbara
seemed to get more creative and urgent in her efforts to find
our calico.  I tended to write the cat off.  If she was able to
return, I reasoned, she would.  If she wasn't able to return,
she wouldn't.  Bottom line: she isn't returning.

The day the cat disappeared we had the tarp taken off a
fumigated outbuilding.  I considered a connection, but was sure
the inspector didn't drive off with her.  The outbuilding was
in the area our two cat-hating shelter dogs roam, so I could
not see any likelihood of a cat going near there.  I found the
most anti-cat of the two dogs in one of those outbuildings that
had been opened to air out.  Looking guilty.

We searched the outbuilding 3 times and locked it up.  It never
dawned on me to put a cage trap in there or rig it so a cat
could escape but a dog could not get in or see if my driveway
alert infrared sensor could pick up anything amongst the
clutter.  None of that would be logical anyhow, since a cat in
the real world for 3 years would never go in the midst of a
yard she knew to be unfriendly dog territory.

6 days after Murphy disappeared, Barbara was out in that back
yard scooping up dogpoo.  As only an ever-faithful, optimistic,
full-of-hope Cat Mom would do, she called out, in the vicinity
of that shed, "Murphy?"  "Murphy?" and got an answer.  If she
hadn't had that against-all-logic hope and irrationally called
out, more as a wish from the heart that a serious "are you
there?" that calico would have had nothing to respond to.

Back in the house, Murphy couldn't get enough of us.  We got
rubbed and nuzzled steadily for a delicious several minutes
before our Smurf noticed the food and water.  Other than
voraciously hungry and thirsty, she was completely her old
self.  A human would probably be in the hospital a few days. 
Each time I see her I now it feels like a gift.

A link to a picture of our curious calico:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9482738@N07/3887910933/

Tom