What to do about a lost cat?
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Fucking HVAC motherfuckers. I was working so I didn't see this happening, but while fixing our system they kept the front door open for a few hours. They had to walk through basically the whole place to get to the unit, and were kinda loud about it, so probably what happened was Meatball (Maine coon) got freaked, ran outside to get away from them, and then from there, who knows what. He normally hates being outside so that's the only thing we can figure. The timing was right.
He's been gone for over a day at this point. On the plus side, pretty much all of our neighbors have pets so they know the deal. There are lost pet posts on Nextdoor and Facebook all the time, so we posted on there to get the word out. We drove around all last night. He loves the shit out of cans of wet cat food so my idea was to record the sound of the can opening (he's very keen on that sound), and just play it over and over again as we walked around.
Still nothing, though. Really starting to worry. He's got a chip in him but no collar; every one we've put on him, he's found a way to remove.
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Goddamn those HVAC people forever. I'm so sorry this is happening. Worried about Meatball and you. Do you have a sense of how long it takes him to get over things that worry or frighten him? If he runs under the bed, how long til he comes out? That might provide a clue on how long it will take him to come home.
I'd give the HVAC vendor pure holy hell about this.
Please keep us posted.
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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@Catseye3 said in What to do about a lost cat?:
Goddamn those HVAC people forever. I'm so sorry this is happening. Worried about Meatball and you. Do you have a sense of how long it takes him to get over things that worry or frighten him? If he runs under the bed, how long til he comes out?
He normally doesn't get frightened, that's the thing. He's a pretty darn big cat. It takes a lot to spook him, but a couple of loud guys he doesn't know walking in and out of where he normally hangs out is probably enough.
We found a shitload of claw marks on our weather strip just outside our door last night. And, a couple of pairs of shoes we had outside to dry were moved around. We think he tried to return around 3 am last night, but we didn't know. Now we're sleeping downstairs in the living room with the windows open (despite the air quality shit) just so we can hear if he tries again.
My guess is he's incredibly freaked out and only moved around at 3 am because that's when he felt (relatively) safest. So if he's freaked, there's no telling where he'd go or what he'd do.
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Take his litter box outside, and other things he will recognize the smell of. Make sure there's water. Cats don't generally range too far but find a place to hide. If he's coming around at 3 am he wants back in. Spend as much time outside talking loudly as you can. If you have a deck or porch check under it. Favorite cat hiding places. Check all the bushes around your home.
"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in What to do about a lost cat?:
Take his litter box outside, and other things he will recognize the smell of.
Yeah, he's got the litter box out there, couple of cans of cat food we keep swapping out for a fresh smell, and I even hung up some bags of valerian root tea because he absolutely loves that stuff.
Make sure there's water.
There's a lot of water in a nearby stream, so we walked through there last night.
Cats don't generally range too far.
I really hope so.
We're checking the neighborhood regularly.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in What to do about a lost cat?:
Oh, man. Sorry to hear of this.
Nothing to add other than what Mik said. Our local FB group has a "lost cat" posted about every 10 days, and everyone suggests what he said - food, litter box, other things that are associated with home and its smells.
Any idea about the loss/return rate for those incidents?
Please love yourself.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in What to do about a lost cat?:
Any idea about the loss/return rate for those incidents?
If I had to guess about ⅔ get home.
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How is the little one taking it?
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HO LEE SHIT.
Just after I posted this, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of potato chips and just sort of walked around and went into the basement. It's been years since I've eaten potato chips at home and I seldom go into the basement—it's basically just storage and the carpet's got some weird shit in it that messes with my lungs if I'm down there too long—but I've been kind of beside myself and didn't get much sleep last night.
Right fucking there he was, by the basement window.
It's hard to describe but it's very hard to get from the front door to the basement window, even for a cat. You have to take a very long way around. I have no idea how or why he got there or even that he knew that was home. (I mean yeah, pets aren't stupid but even still.)
I fucked up, though, and opened the door too quickly. He got startled and ran, so I chased him as best I could without scaring him further. Finally cornered him in a neighbor's bushes between their stoop and the side of their house. He was freaked the hell out and did not want picked up, but after a couple of seconds he calmed down enough for me to carry him. Poor guy was shaking pretty bad, though.
My wife came downstairs, found me gone with the basement door open and a handful of potato chips on the ground and wondered what the hell happened.
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I really thought we weren't gonna find him. None of the food we've been leaving out has been touched, and he absolutely loves food. (And there are foxes, possums, raccoons and all manner of other woodland animals outside. Not that they'd attack him—he's still got his claws and he's a big boy—but if they aren't touching the food, and he's not nearby enough to know it's there...)
And in all fairness to the HVAC guys, it's not like they knew he was an inside cat only, but still. Fuckin' hell what an unfun day and a half.
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Glad to hear it all worked out so well.
10-15 years, ours (an outdoor cat) vanished. I'd given up after a week, when she returned, miaowing at me from the bushes. Unharmed but a lot thinner. I was initially alerted to her return by the dog doing these crazy twirls - he'd really missed her too.
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Yay!
