Please explain this to me! My 16 year old cat disappeared for

10 days. I'm in the woods. I don't know where she went but last night she returned and was scratching at my bedroom window. She looks fine and she looks fed. Where do these animals go and why? And how do they know to come home after more than a week away? Why do they leave and why do they come back? She has never done this before!

the very next day...remember that song. I'd post the lyrics but they are alarming.

I know with a dog if they stay gone awhile they are most of the time gone forever but cats can be gone a month or two and show back up. I am really glad she reappeared. :hi:

to her. Once and a while she wanders down to the cabin I have nearby and doesn't seem to know how to get herself back. I usually go down and find here hanging around there. This time was different.

A few years ago one of my closest friend's . . had two of his dogs walk off and never come back within weeks... we always theorize after Amus (the first dog) left Bob the Bloodhound decided he was going to go to.

It's still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wp764ZMon1c

I'd forgotten to try youtube for these classic animations- thanks for the great idea!

I always thought that was just a weird song that my elementary school music teacher came up with.



The human race race was finished
Without a soul to pray

But the cat came back the very next day...

That's the only explanation I can come up with.

And they can do it even without leaving the house. They'll vanish for hours or even days, and you think they got out somehow because you look all over, in every closet and box and drawer and under every bed and sofa and behind every bookcase, and you call and call, until all of a sudden the cat is sitting right there gazing at you, with this look like, "What??"

So it's got to be that all cats know where to find the portals into this other cat universe, and goddess knows what they do while they're there.

It couldn't be more accurate than it is. I think we have the answer. :thumbsup:

She lives inside, and I'll be lucky if I'm allowed to stay inside tonight. ;-)

My theory is smell. They run off because they smell somehting really cool and want to eat or have sex.
Then they come across the smell of home, and you, and then find that irresistible.

How's your job? I hope it's going well. :hi:

I love it. I feel as if I've been in training my whole life to do this. Everything I've ever learned is kicking in, all the "people skills" and the political skills, the legal skills, and the land use skills. I like the people and I have a really wonderful, talented assistant. There are enormous challenges but I feel as if I can really make a contribution. And the best thing is that I don't have to keep my time on 15 minute intervals like I did when I was practicing law. I can just do what I think needs to be done. I believe that I have been really blessed to have found this!

Feels good to get away, doesn't it?

I am so glad to hear it. You never know how it's going to play out till you meet the whole workplace- and it sounds like you found some good people to work with. So did I. I guess it's just our turn.
cheers to that!
:toast:

Keep an eye on her for a few days and make sure she's really eating. My indoor cat was out for 3 weeks and didn't get enough food. He ended up with hepatic lipidosis and anorexia, which required force feeding. Of course, it was obvious there was a problem since he was down 25% of his weight when we found him...

As for where they go, I think that's one of life's great mysteries - I'm betting they go roll around in the great big pile of mismatched socks that's gotta be somewhere...

Y'know when they're out all night? They're at meetings where, among other things, they plan their annual convention.

From what I hear, this one was in Las Vegas.

Stuck around till they ran out of tuna :rofl:

Hell, someone has to do it.

:hi: Raven! Hope you are well!

She's a cat. Cats are mysterious animals. It's best to just agree with them if you know what's good for you. There's no better honor than being allowed into their world and being allowed to partake in the insanity that is cat dom.

If you don't believe me, just ask your cat. God, I love cats. :P

As a mom to 3 cats, I could not agree more.

Who knows what they are thinking?

Whatever it was that made your cat go on walk-about...it was important. Lol.

My cat, aka RAMBO, left for 2 weeks in the middle of winter. I mean, negative temperatures in the day, and way lower during the night. I thought he was a goner, but he showed up.

He left during a time when the snow out back was at least two feet deep

sheesh you must have been scared. That's happened to me a couple of times and it was terrible :cry:

Four days after I adopted Shadow--because Leo seemed to be gone for good--he showed up on my deck. I would love to know where he was all that time.

who disappeared/ran away, then reappeared on Halloween (about 2 months after disappearing), then stayed a few days, disappeared again, then reappeared the following Halloween - she is certain it's the same cat. Sounds made-up, but this is what happened.

That's the most common explanation. They wander in an open door and get shut inside.

I wonder if she got in there one day for shelter when the door was open and when it was raining. I adopted her.

I don't want to preach but please keep her inside from now on. She may
have had a close call with a coyote or fox and climbed a tree and stayed there for a few days scared out of her wits. You'll never know.
I was trying to tame a feral a few years ago. He lived on the porch in a heated shelter as I was working with him but I still couldn't get him in the house at that time. It then got extremely cold and snowy and he was off the porch for about a week and then suddenly reappeared. I thought he had died somewhere.

I bet you were worried as hell. I'm so glad she's back.

Cat disappears for 2 weeks at a time during the warmer months. I think he hangs out at the lady across the streets house.She feeds him tuna all the time.

Here's a happy story for you:

"The cat came back"

"CRYSTAL LAKE – After a fire gutted their Crystal Lake home in January, Harriet and Kurt Johnson rebuilt their house and got new furniture, clothes and appliances.

But they couldn’t replace everything.

The animal lovers still were distraught over the loss of a pet cat, Berry Ben, who vanished in the smoke and flames.

Eight months after the fire, the Johnsons moved into their rebuilt home, and to the couple’s amazement, the missing feline trotted up to the back door."

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2007/10/04/news/local/doc4704b02acc4f1473477269.txt

disappeared for a month. when she returned, she was flea infested and had lost nearly 2 pounds.
now, three weeks later, her coat is shinny, and her belly is full. she's back to herself, demanding and affectionate.
i cannot imagine where she went, i'm in the woods too.
glad your kitty came back!

a man had a cat. he married a woman who was allergic to cats. she told him to get rid of the cat.

so he give the cat to a friend. the next day the friend calls him and tells him the cat has disappeared. By that evening the cat shows up at his door.

the next day he takes the cat across town to the SPCA. the next day the SPCA calls him, says they don't know how, but the cat escaped. Two days later the cat shows up at his door.

by now the new wife is sneezing something awful, tells the guy to get rid of the cat.

out of desperation, the man takes the cat 25 miles out of town, parks his car and walks into the woods for a couple of hours where he releases the cat.

now it's night, the wife is getting worried, hubby has been gone for hours and should have been home by now. The next morning really has her worried, hubby is still not home. She calls the hospitals - they don't have him listed. The police tell her she has to wait at least 24 hours before reporting him missing.

she paces, she calls friends, relatives telling them to call her if they hear from him. she tosses and turns through the night. next day still no hubby - so she goes to the police department and files a missing person report.

when she returns home, she finds her hubby sitting at the kitchen table, at his feet is the cat lapping up a saucer of milk.

she's overjoyed at seeing her husband, but dismayed at the cat

"I thought you were going to get rid of the cat?"

the man smiles "get rid of the cat??? if it wasn't for the cat I wouldn't have found my way home."

I started walking the nieghborhood knocking on doors asking people if they had seen the kitty in the picture. Everyone said no. I showed my neighbor and he said he would keep an eye out. Sure enough stupid kittybilly was under a bush in his backyard hiding from his two dogs. he was still a fairly small cat back then.

One another occasion, kittybill came in soaking wet, he somehow fell into the neighbors pool. He is outside most of the time now but he only hangs out between my house and the neighbors. He does not like venturing out too far.

:hi:


:silly:

and apparently she likes it so much she just left me flat. In the beginning my neighbor would bring her, (Ginger) home but she would go straight out the back dog door and be at their house before my neighbor even got home.

Between my several neighbors here I have found out that my male cat, Skutch, actually does catch mice....in another neighbor's back yard. He like to go through the pipes under the road, (not sewage pipes....the pipes that they extra water runs off into when we have big rains). And he hangs out with Ginger at her new house under their porch.

Skutch, will come home when I call him but if he wants to stay out he just hangs around for a few and then leaves.

I'm lucky that my neighbors are all animal lovers.

You can't control a cat.

He was at our house recovering from a respiratory infection which our redneck neighbor is too dumb to recognize and too cheap to treat even if he did recognize it. The cat showed up on our doorstep when he got sick, left for home when he got better, and hasn't been back since. Our neighbor is mystified and we're not enlightening him.