I moved in with my boyfriend, now husband, and his brother in 2006. We were in a cute townhouse, long and skinny with three floors. The layout and finishing were great. I could only have two pets, though, so I had to find a new home for Star and I took Amy back to the feral cat shelter in Maple Ridge (yes, Amy was not human friendly, at all, I tried for four years). So it was just CJ and Brutus.
CJ adapted to the change pretty well. He adopted the upstairs spare room as his own. My boyfriend's brother, we'll call him RJ, had been waiting for the move in order to get a new dog. Within a few months there was a cute little Frenchy added to the four legged friend mix of our new home. Little Spud was familiar with cats and CJ was, of course, familiar with dogs, so the transition went pretty smoothly. Spuddy would run at CJ and head butt him. CJ would simply flop over. No hissing or hitting. He knew it was a puppy who didn't know any better.
In this new home CJ escaped twice. Now we were not near a ravine, but there was an empty lot kiddy corner to our place that was filled with blackberry bushes. I am pretty sure that is where he went.
The first time, he was gone for around six weeks (like at my ravine house) and I did successfully catch him in the trap. I put up posters, knocked on the neighbours doors, put out food and water and searched the bushes (as much as I could). Again, I had to rent a live animal trap to get him back. Like last time, I also caught everyone else's cats.
Sometimes, we had disappearing food in the trap with no animal. We were pretty sure it was a raccoon, so we set up an infrared camera and recorded the night's events. Sure enough, up waddled a big raccoon. He went into the trap, ate the food and came back out again, cleverly avoiding the trigger that closes the trap door. He actually came over and sniffed the camera too. It was pretty cute, but also a little unnerving, since cats and raccoons don't really get along.
I never gave up on CJ. I just persistently checked the trap a few times a day, releasing the animals. RJ checked and released a few animals too. Actually, I am pretty sure that RJ was the one that found CJ in the trap one day. He called for me and I came to get my cat. Surprisingly, CJ was in much better shape this time. Actually, when he went missing, he had a weird little growth on his eye that we were going to see the specialist about. When he came home, the growth was gone. I happily went out and took down all of the missing cat posters.
The second time he went missing was much longer. We followed all of the same steps, going to neighbours, searching, calling his name, setting up posters, and yes, renting another live animal trap. After six weeks of catching and releasing other felines, I had the idea of putting out CJ's litter box. My theory was that he escapes and then looses his mind. Its like he gets temporary dementia or something. Anyway, there was no mistaking who's little box it was, so I was hopeful that it would lead him home. I was also thinking that he was avoiding the trap, since he had been trapped twice before.
After eight weeks, I went out one evening and there he was, sitting in his litter box. This time he was in extremely rough shape, I was actually concerned if he would live to the next day, so we went to a 24 hr vets. They admitted him and put him on an IV for the night, to rehydrate him. We then nursed him back to health again, with soft food and TLC.
He was never quite the same after that. He spent most of his time up in his room, very anti-social. I also had to make sure that his food and water dish were never empty. If it did go empty, he would freak out the next time I filled the dish and eat or drink it all, resulting in him getting sick. Poor little guy. He got quite chubby, probably thinking he should store up some fat, just in case.
That was the last time CJ escaped, thank goodness. Eventually, CJ became social and loving again, but he was never quite normal about his food and water. Who knows how many of his cat lives he used up in these adventures...I am sure he would have many exciting stories to tell if he could talk.
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