BS: The Cat Came Back!

Subject: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Aug 10 - 08:56 PM

Our calico cooncat Teji has been missing since the last week in May. She's now curled up in my lap purring away, feeling quite thin but no obvious signs of abuse. When she disappeared we had papered the town with posters (and refreshed them two weeks ago) and contacted the animal shelters and animal control people. But it wasn't until the last couple of weeks that we began to get a set of calls about a cat resembling her from one neighborhood by the river about a mile away. And today the call was fresh enough so that when I parked the van and tried out my Ethiopian cat call (mother cat call) Teji came howling up the hill out of the bush. She was very happy to see me, even tolerated being picked up and being driven back home in the van.

Once home and inside the kitchen she proceeded to shred the scratching post, and then emptied the dry cat food bowl. Her half sister still hasn't acknowledged her presence with her usual hiss but I'm sure that will happen later.

This is the third time that Teji has disappeared: once for a week, once for a couple of days, and this time for a couple of months. We haven't a clue how she got to where she was, other than imagining her crawling into the back of a parked pickup truck and being driven off.

We'll take her to the vet tomorrow for a formal check-up but we think she's fine and will fatten up fairly quickly to her proper weight.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 09 Aug 10 - 09:53 PM

Charley - so glad she is back........they become such an important part of life....

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 10 - 10:04 PM

It's odd that a female cat would be so inclined to wander. Usually it's the males who take off now and then (looking for "entertainment").

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 10 - 10:51 PM

So glad she is back, esp. after being gone so long! I hope she is home to stay, now.

My heart is too tender for such wanderings. My cats have been inside cats with outdoor enclosures for years and quite content.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 01:16 AM

I'm happy for you, Charley (Sweet story!) but I was hoping this thread was started by you, kat. Your son's kitty has not been found?

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 01:20 AM

One of my current pair vanished - the RSPCA said she had been found - 'streets away' - probably curled up in the back of the guy next door's truck and woke up and jumped out when he stopped - lucky I had them chipped... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 01:42 AM

Glad this story has a happy ending! Heavens, over two months.....you must have been surprised when she turned up.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: My guru always said
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 02:38 AM

So very glad to see this!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: ragdall
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 03:15 AM

Charley,
It's wonderful that you found Teji!

In our neighbourhood it would appear that someone is live trapping and providing free rides "out to the country" for cats who wander onto his property. I wonder if someone might have deliberately taken Teji away?

rags

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Cats
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 06:29 AM

such wonderful news. Bathsheba Everdene is helping me type this and she sends purrs and whrrrs and Isolde of the White Paws would too but she is fast asleep on the window seat. Rosie is out hunting and Ollie is sitting under the camper but they send their love too. xx

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: gnu
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 06:33 AM

Awwwww... nice.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 08:27 AM

Ragdall-

In our neighbourhood it would appear that someone is live trapping and providing free rides "out to the country" for cats who wander onto his property. I wonder if someone might have deliberately taken Teji away?

We do have someone in the neighborhood like that but he swore that he hadn't seen Teji.

Teji seldom patrols more than the adjacent jungle yards of our own block. She's also shy of strangers who might try to lure her into a car. We'll never know for sure. But we are glad that we never gave up hope and posted new fliers with her picture a few weeks ago after hearing new reports. As predicted her half-sister is not thrilled to be sharing "her house" with Teji again but they don't attack one another.

Cheerly,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 09:45 AM

I get nervous when Freddie stays out all night. Don't know what I would do if he disappeared.
Glad kitty is home and safe.
Mary

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 10:48 AM

Ebbie, I posted to my son's thread, yes! He got his kitty back. He'd been hiding in an unused old caravan. Someone saw him near it, my son knew as soon as he saw it, that was where he would be. Sure enough, went in, opened a bathroom cupboard and there he was, two weeks after being lost. A little skinnier, but doing a good job of putting it back on. Thanks for asking.:-)

When we lived in CT there was a guy down the street who "specialised" in live trapping pet cats and selling them to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. At least that's what the authorities "intimated" when I called them the night I found my brother's cat in a trap in the guy's backyard. That was the most daring rescue of my life. The cage was heavy, in the dark I couldn't tell how to open it, the porch light had come on, I was afraid for my life and the cat's. So, I picked up the cage, cat and all, and ran as fast as I could to our house, with barely enough breath to yell at my family to open the door, quick, the vile miscreant was right behind me. He started yelling about his cage. By that time, we had the cat out, he'd left to call the cops. I was calling the cops, too, but we also threw his cage out on the front grass so he could fetch it. He did and the cops calmed him down enough that he left us alone. We warned everyone in the neighbourhood after that. For years after, that cat liked to be held over the shoulder. I'd pick him up, go to the window when it was dark and talk to him about the "bad things" that were out there and got him. His eyes would get big as saucers; he never forgot, nor did I.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 11:11 AM

I love happy endings. sniff

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 11:21 AM

Keep your cat in your house - for its sake and for the sake of the wild birds, who are suffering fearsome decimation by cats.

To ensure domestic tranquility, get a kitten and keep it inside. (It's very hard to get a mature cat that's used to going outside to stay inside.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 04:23 PM

Teji was a practitioner of "catch and release" after bringing her catch home through the cat door when it came to rodents and birds. We are wondering, given her survival in the wilds of Richmond, if she has discovered that her "play things" are also a food group. More likely she just added a few friendly houses to her new patrol route, and managed to beg enough to survive on. Evidently she was lairy enough not to let anyone capture her.

We're inviting the neighbors who contacted us for a small celebration at our neighborhood tavern, The Old Goat. I think we'll leave Teji home.

"Tejitu" in case anyone is interested is Ethiopian for "spirited (literally honey wine)." It's a common name for a bargirl.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 04:39 PM

welcome home Teji

I love happy endings too.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: gnu
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 05:10 PM

Posted this earlier... thought it might fit in here, even with thread drift...

Subject: RE: BS: Fox (as in animal) & Cats Question???
From: gnu - PM
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 03:15 PM

I have found cats normally go for the eyes first.

I've posted this one before... the best trick I ever saw in a cat fight. 8PM... Cassie (4 years) ambushed Cheucie (12) at the LR/KIT entrance and immediately dashed down the hall, with Cheucie in pursuit. Cassie planted her front claws in the carpet at the bedroom door jamb at the end of the hall and put the top of her head against the jamb. She then levered her hind end up just as Cheucie caught up to her and raked Cheucie's chest and neck with her hind claws in whirlwind fashion a la Bug's Bunny cartoon speed. FUR was FLYING!

I let out a great roar and the fight was over... for a while. Cheucie immediately went to the litter box in the basement and then sat in the kitchen by the food and water dishes. At 2AM, I heard them at it again and the next morn, the was fur in the kitchen... Cassie's.

Cats can be pretty cagey.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Naemanson
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 05:58 PM

Good for Teji! Maybe it's a bid for more attention... uh, never mind. I've seen the way you treat those cats and they do not want for attention.

Good news piled on top of our own good news.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 07:13 PM

My cat is male and he likes to go outside in summer. He doesn't like winter much but will even go out in the cold just to be outside. Sometimes I'll let him out when it's 5 degrees F and he'll disappear for hours and I'll be worrying because he can't possibly be out in that kind of cold then he'll scratch at the door and comes in like it was no big deal. I don't know where he goes during those times. He kills mice and birds only very sporadically--mice more than birds. But I do have to check his mouth before I let him in--he doesn't always kill what he catches.

He was an indoor car for the first two years of his life but he started dashing outside when I'd open the door so there was no preventing him. So, he's an outdoor cat now for about 7 years and that's not going to change. He has his own gang. They come up on the porch at night and mewl for him to come out and he goes crazy wanting to go outside and it's such a ruckus that it's easier just to let him out and get some peace and quiet. Then god only knows where they go and do. He may come back in 30 minutes or he'll be gone all night.

Once I saw him in the backyard nose-to-nose with a big possum. When I opened the backdoor, the possum sauntered off into the shadows behind the garage and the cat followed him. About a half-hour later he's pawing at the front door and acted like nothing happened when I let him in. Sometimes he comes in with big patches of fur missing after fighting another cat. He came in with a reverse mohawk. "What happened?!" I said as I tenderly touched his perfect little head. He made a mewling sound and purred. No big deal to him.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 07:28 PM

I forgot to mention that my cat can teleport himself. I keep his dish full all day in case he wants to snack. I saw his dish was almost empty so I went to the hall closet where I keep a bag of dry food on the top shelf. On the bottom shelf, I keep towels. I have to shut the door when I remove the food because he'll jump into the towels and I don't want loose fur all over my towels. Well, I forgot to shut the door so after I filled his dish, I was walking back to the hall closet and there he was in a crouch and I could see he was about to leap. Before I could warn him off, he leapt into the closet. "Hey, get outta there!" I said. I started rooting through the towels saying, "Come on, get down now!" But there was no cat. I bent down and checked the shelf--no cat. I looked on the other shelves even though he never jumps on those but he wasn't there either. I was like, "What the hell?" Then I looked back down the hall and there he was at the very end of the hall just sitting very still watching me. "How did you get all the way down there without me seeing you?" I asked. He slowly got up and strolled very leisurely towards me and walked between my feet purring and wrapping his tail around one leg and then the other. "Ok, I give," I said. "How'd you do that?" But magicians never give up their secrets.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: maire-aine
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 10:34 PM

Glad to hear the good news from Charlie and from Kat.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: ragdall
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 12:50 PM

We do have someone in the neighborhood like that but he swore that he hadn't seen Teji.

Maybe he caught her with his eyes closed? Our cat transporting neighbour always denies his crimes too.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 12:53 PM

i once had the most cosmic cat in the universe. she was white with blue eyes who had lived feral for about two years in the rocky mountains when we adopted her. i expected her to run off but she liked the food and heat and the freedon from raiding eagles. a lot of her feral kin were eagle food, but she was white and in the snow it was great cover.

anyway, she would roam up the ten miles on occasion but almost always came home within the day and never stayed away for more than two days.

among her many feats she was able to predict our daughters epileptic seizures. she would warn us and we had a natouopathic cure that had to be adminstered before the seizure, kids of course don't notice the onset, they don't notice needing to pee in advance, but the cat figured it out and she never had a seizure again, after she learned this trick she never left our daughters side. spent her time watching for signs, even slept on a shelf above her bed.and she stopped roaming. the kid made a complete recovery from the complications which can be serious for the very young.

smart cat,and well loved,she lived to 18 . i was living in revelstoke bc then, the last time i was back i saw a dozen white cats in our neighbourhood, all her offspring i think.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: gnu
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 02:35 PM

ollaimh... gosh.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 06:04 PM

Folks have been very supportive and Judy and I appreciate that. Here's a Facebook link to Teji sleeping off her ordeal on the step stool in the bedroom: click here for Facebook link

There are several more images of Teji and her half-sister Tilahun if you cycle back (click previous) through this album.

Teji is resting on my lap right now. Feels good!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Cat Came Back!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 03:07 PM

Off to the vet for check-up.

Tej does have a couple of fleas, not surprising, but it's time to apply the anti-flea dope to both our resident cats's necks, and maybe consider wearing flea-collars ourselves.

Charley Noble