I thought I'd share a sad experience to fellow pet lovers. My first cat "Yeti" was one that was adopted – she was the neighborhood cat, and the neighbor moved, left Yeti and she became our cat. She was old, a little grumpy, but also a delight. She moved in and adopted us. Prior to Yeti, I didn't know I liked cats!
Three years later, one day I could not find her. For 4 days, she was not around. I looked everywhere for Yeti, and did not find her. I made flyers. I went up and down the street, in alleys, in odd places. And still I could not find her.
Then on the 5th day, Tommy figured it out. We went out the house, into the alley again and shouted "Yeti" ... A faint sound came from behind a fence ... and then we found her. Underneath rocks, behind a steel cyclone fence. She was not in good shape.
The emergency vet said she went off to die. This struck me as strange. Why would she do that? She was our pride and joy – she ran the house. Anyway, she was pretty ill, and the next 2 weeks meant giving her a lot of medicine. It's hard to give a cat an injection – they struggle a lot (and hiss). Sadly, three weeks later she passed away.
I wrote this because pet lovers must have sad stories like this that can help others get through it. When cats suddenly disappear, it is such a horrible feeling. But my advice is they are normally not that far away from the house – just go and look in the place that seems most obvious. I still don't understand why they go away – that remains a puzzle.
1. I have had several elderly cats that probably did this same thing. Most recently, my Alex (a stray who adopted me and was over 13 years old when he left) disappeared for a week. I couldn't stop crying, so we ended up getting a kitten--not as a replacement, but a lovable distraction. Then, Alex came back. Several months passed and he disappeared again, this time for three weeks before coming back, in terrible shape. We had him fixed up, then he left for the final time some months after that. I wondered if he got to his hiding spot expecting to die, then he just... didn't, so he wandered back. His two homecomings were extremely emotional for me, and it made it hard to believe that he was really gone that last time.
I believe that cats don't ever want to show vulnerability to predators, which is why they hide. But part of me also believes that they want to spare us the trauma of watching them die. As a side note, the most wonderfully full-of-herself cat I ever knew made a production of her death, dying in my mother's front yard, three feet in the air (she was a tripod). No hiding for her, no sir--wanted everyone to have the chance to admire her one last time.
RIP, Alex and Spots. We miss you.
Posted at 4:07PM on Apr 13th 2007 by TC