Hello all!
This may be a bit of a long post, but bear with me.
We've had Alfie just over 3 months, and he's probably about 10 months old we think. He's a very friendly, inquisitive young cat - fine around strangers, loves company (whether it be human or other cats) and didn't hide even once when we got him! He loves being outside - we back onto woodland and there are lots of other cats in our neighbourhood to play with.
Anyway, we have a bit of a problem with him going AWOL and it's upsetting us quite a lot.
Firstly let me say I realise that there will be nights that he doesn't come back - having grown up with cats (that are not house cats) I realise that they do that now and again.
First time it happened was in Feb - we let him out at about 7-30pm and he rolled back in at about 2am (we usually feed him about 5-30 and then shut him in overnight until we go out to work about 8am). As you can imagine we were worried but can put it down to my first point. Interestingly we had been away for the weekend before that, so he had been left alone from Friday pm to Sunday pm with an auto cat feeder to make sure he was fed and had full access to the cat flap day and night.
Last Wed it happened again - no sign of him for feeding when my other half got home at 5-30pm, and nothing for the rest of the evening despite us going outside and rattling keys and treat boxes that normally get him in. In fact he didn't re-appear at all that night and was not back by the time we left for work at 8am. Eventually he appeared when my other half was back at home at lunch looking for him, having not been back in all morning as we'd left the catflap on in-only.
2 other points here - firstly I'd been off work last Tues and he'd disappeared off for about 5 hours, until about 4pm and he came back warm and dry but with his fur smelling of cigarette smoke. My other half said that his fur also smelled of cigarette smoke when he came back on Thu lunch. Secondly, this was after we'd been away for the weekend again - early Fri am to late Sun pm and with someone coming in and feeding him twice daily and shutting the cat flap at night.
As you can imagine we're pretty upset by this but then Friday it starts again - he's not in when my other half gets back to feed him and still not back into the evening. By just before 8pm I'd had enough so I decided to go out looking for him and started knocking on people's doors armed with a picture of him asking if anyone had seen him. No luck but I did find out that a LOT of people know him and quite a few mentioned that he'd been in their house! The cigarette smoke had got me thinking (along with the fact that he's so friendly) that someone may have been deliberately letting him in and possibly feeding him as well, probably not realising that they were causing us a lot of stress and worry. One neighbour had keys to another neighbours house that we knew Alfie had been in (the owner died recently, sadly) and said he'd check it but he wasn't in there. It was now gone 10pm so we sat down and decided what to do when there was a knock on the door and said neighbour had a scared looking Alfie in his arms, having noticed him in the close when going out to his car so he'd managed to grab him (which we were very grateful for!).
Saturday was like Fri, take 2. Cat flap was open as usual, and we'd been out from about midday until just before 7pm. No sign of him when we got back, and again he didn't appear during the evening. By about 9-30pm we'd had enough again and set out with torch, cat treats and picture of Alfie to start calling on the houses we hadn't done on Friday. Luckily he appeared within a minute or so, so that was a relief.
So we've bought a locating device (
www.loc8tor.co.uk) and stitched it onto the back of his collar - to be honest it's not brilliant and we won't just be able to switch it on in the house and expect it to pick up a signal because it doesn't go through walls very well (1 seems to be ok but that's it). But it's enough that if we wander round the neighbourhood with it it might give us an idea if he's in someone'e house. So he's tagged like a criminal!!
We also decided to keep him in yesterday but in the end relented - it was such a nice day and he really wanted to go out, it seemed cruel to keep him in. Interestingly, as both of us were in or around the house (I was out washing the car) he didn't go very far and wasn't out for very long.
But we're still a bit stuck. The problem is it's hard to know how long he's been out when we get back from being out (he could have gone out just before my other half got back on Friday in which case I started looking for him <3 hours later which is not that long a time for him to be out, and same goes for Saturday) and we really have no idea if he is actually in someone's house or not before accusing people! There are a million and one places he could be - down in the woodland behind the house, in someone's garden, in a shed or a garage. We have some evidence that he is in someone's house but can't be sure.
We're just worried that whenever we let he out now we're not sure if he's going to come back and are upset and frustrated by the fact that he could be in someone's house that is feeding him and making him feel at home enough that he wants to be there and not with us
. On the flip side it would seem that it may well stem from him just being lonely when we're not there and wanting some company - if he is in some little old lady's house then we wouldn't mind as long as we knew they didn't feed him and they'd put him outside when it's time for his food.
Sorry for the length of the post, I thought I'd include as much of the picture as possible. Any help or comments would be appreciated as it's upsetting us. Do we just have to accept that is the way he is?
