She’s back!

Dobby came home!  We were ready to try to trap her this evening, as she’s been eating comfortably out of the traps, but last night while we slept she apparently snuck back into the house on her own.  How about that?  You can read all about it on Flippy’s blog, as she’s the one who found Dobby first and she has a very detailed post about it.

Dobby was great with us this morning, but as the day wore on she seemed to become progressively more afraid of us.  It was very odd… this morning she came right up to me and let me pet her, and this evening she was hiding under a table and refused to come out to eat dinner.  She’s obviously backtracked a bit in terms of being tame.  She’s glanced at the doggie door a few times, too, and I do not want her to escape again.  At the very least, I want her spayed, microchipped, and wearing a collar before she escapes again.  I’m glad we didn’t need to trap her to catch her, so we’ll have that option available to us if she gets out again.

I know some people would think it was cruel that we won’t allow her to go in and out as she pleases, but our neighbourhood is just one disaster-in-waiting after another.  We are surrounded by continuous new retail construction and heavy machinery.  Our neighbour fills his yard with old cars that he buys and sells, and Dobby could easily get lost or hurt by hanging out in one of the junked cars.  For example, I’m pretty sure that these five days she’s been missing, she’s been living in the body of a wrecked Mustang.  If you look out our front door, you see a major, very busy, four lane road which leads directly to the freeway on-ramp.  In the midst of all the construction around us, I saw two coyote pups a few weeks ago, wandering around near an Office Max.  It would be fine if she just left the house and hung out in the yard, lying under the palm trees, but if she gets frightened and takes off like a rocket in the wrong direction, she’s going to end up in poured concrete as a permanent part of a storage facility.  Our area is mayhem.

Tonight, Dobby has slept in a closed room with Missy Mae, Carlo, and Bunny.  They have a new piece of cat furniture and a new bed to break in.  I hope that she’ll start to tame up again very quickly, or I might have to isolate her a bit so we can work with her on a more intensive basis.  This thing we’re doing of just giving her free run of the house, and being happy if she shows up to grab a piece of kibble from us, might not be working.

Anyway… thanks to everyone who sent good thoughts our way, and to Jody, for her excellent cat trapping advice.  I hope anyone else in this situation will also have a happy ending, and I hope I never have to go through this again!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 10/05 at 05:28 AM

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  1. Welcome home, Dobby!

    And yeah, all of mine are indoor-only, and they take their jobs as catfur machines, food watchers, and professional snoozers very seriously.  Sometimes, they’ll look out the window at the birds--and then promptly walk over to the foodbowl, grateful that their human slave catches all the goodies for them.

    Posted by Charlotte  on  10/05  at  07:31 AM

  2. YAY!! So glad the little wanderer has returned!

    Posted by Helena  on  10/05  at  10:12 AM

  3. Oh whew!  I am so relieved.

    Posted by Von Krankipantzen  on  10/05  at  10:53 AM

  4. I am so happy for you that Dobby came home.  I was just reflecting that it is just over 1 year since Claudio left us.  I still miss that cat.

    Posted by vetmommy  on  10/05  at  05:22 PM

  5. Hooray! I’m so glad that she returned. My three cats are all indoor-only pets, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. In fact, one of the conditions of adopting cats from the Toronto Humane Society is that you agree to keep them indoors. Of course it is harder to do when you have a cat who is used to the outdoors, but as I’m sure you’ve proven many times over, they can adjust and grow to be perfectly content inside.

    Posted by Calamity Jen  on  10/06  at  12:07 PM

  6. VetMommy, I know I’m slow to reply to this, but I was thinking of Claudio when Dobby went missing.  We too have quite a bit of wildlife in the area (although not as much as you), and I worried that Dobby might meet a fate worse than a car.  I’m very thankful she didn’t go futher than our neighbour’s yard, and I’m not sure if the coyotes can jump the high walls.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  10/26  at  03:41 AM
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