Early last week ED bolted from the house. And where she usually only explores the deck or the immediate vicinity of the door, this time she decided to head out a bit farther. When it was time to come in she was no where to be found.

We kept watch for the rest of the day, checking the door to see if she was ready to come back in, but as bed time rolled around she was nowhere to be found. After that the crud hit the house in full. Neither Taks nor I had the energy to go on an earnest search or stomp around the neighborhood hanging flyers (HOA probably would have ripped them down and fined us anyway). So Taks made a donation to a company that sends the report of a missing animal to every shelter within 100 miles of your house. And I did my best to venture out as far as I could rattling her food bowl in the hopes of bringing her to me.

My next door neighbor used to be on the homeowner's committee that reports to the HOA, so yesterday I caught him outside and asked what the HOA's policy was on missing animal posters. He mentioned that he'd seen a black cat with bright yellow eyes as recently as the day before. So, feeling a good deal better, I set back out to find her again starting with his deck (which he gave me permission to search). Not 15 minutes later I found her. She was three houses down but would not come to me. Luckily Taks came out just then and was able to walk over and pick her up.

So ED's big, five day adventure came to a close with her wolfing down a bowl of food, and sleeping on anything and everything that was warm. She's been in the windows, but she hasn't gone back to the door.

My wife and I had the same thing happen with our cat, Napoleon. But, unfortunately, now that he has had a taste of the outdoors he raises hell until he gets let out. He always comes back, lucky for my wife... err us.

Hey Woody, sorry to hear of the plague thats striking your house hope you get to feeling better and gratz on finding ED during her grand adventure. did ya check her for loot or quest items ? :P good luck to you and yours hope ya all get feelin better soon and thanks for these amusing breaks during work

Umm...Woody? The cat's a she?

ummmmm... [trying to be delicate] Is she fixed? Or will she be emulating Taks in the near future? Then again, wouldn't it be cute to have all those little kittens running around the loft? Talk about all the writing material they would engender!

Yes, she's been spayed and has a microchip. Unfortunately microchips only work to bring them home IF someone catches the animal and bothers to have them checked. She won't abide by a collar or she would have been home the same day.

hehe... Nice. We had an indoor/outdoor cat when I was younger and she would disappear for a day or two at a time and it was no big deal, she always came back.

My cats these days like to try and run outside, but always end up under the deck. Lucky made if off the deck a few weeks ago, right after we got 9 inches of snow. Her reaction was rather funny. I'm guessing she really hates cold snow on her paws!

ED has gotten out before. Twice at our last house. She was gone for the better part of a day the first time and overnight the second. What I don't understand is, she kept returning to the neighbors deck but not ours.

And she hates the snow. So, she's lucky we found her shesterday afternoon. It snowed that evening. She'd have been contending with about 4 inches this morning.

Yea, my cats have a funny habit of liking to run about for a few days as well, but they always come back after a few days of "the great outside." Figure they prefer to get their food in a bowl rather than having to hunt it down.

The problem with our cats is that they keep coming back!

My girlfriend's cat likes to hang out on the balcony of her 3rd floor apartment and try to catch the birds that eat out of the feeder that is there. Well...he made a jump at one and missed his jump by a few inches, missed the railing where the bird was, and essentially jumped off of the third floor balcony. Luckily it only had a few cuts and bruises, but didn't break anything. (There goes life #1).

It took her 3 days to find the cat, though. Poor thing.