Lulu
These days you just don’t know your neighbors anymore. On Friday, my cat, Lulu, went missing. She went out for her morning stroll and then disappeared. She is always around when we are outside working or with the dogs. But Friday was different; she wasn’t around when my mom was working on the poison ivy or in the afternoon when we were grilling. We started to worry right away and by nightfall we were thinking the worst.
We went all around the neighborhood shaking her treats and ringing her toy ball with a little bell inside. My husband called for her, using the call he taught her when she was little. She was gone.
Saturday, we did the same thing. We thought we heard her on the corner of our street, but the meows quickly faded. I constantly went to the backdoor looking for her, calling her, missing her. I cried and cried because I didn’t know if she was okay or what was happening to her.
Sunday started out the same way. Looking for her at the door and through the neighborhood. Worrying, worrying, worrying. Making a plan for our cat search and more tears. Then my husband took our dogs on their afternoon walk. They started barking at the same corner and this time he heard loud meows.
He took the dogs back and together we went to investigate the houses across from the corner. There she was! In the window of the house with her collar still on. She saw us and went to the door. The front door was open with the screen door locked. She meowed away while we tried to get the attention of anyone in the house. We rang and knocked and called out. Nothing.
Finally, I went around to the fenced backyard and someone answered. We told him our cat was in his house and he told us how he took her to the vet and called the police and animal control and blah blah blah. He went through the house to the front door and was joined by his wife and two kids. They said the vet said she needed to be spayed which is not true. She was spayed over a year ago.
They said they tried to find her owners, but we live on the same street and they never said anything. Most of the people on our side of the street know our pets and us. If they told anyone that they find this cat and were looking for her owners, we would have heard about it. The house right across the street from them knows our cat and her name and everything.
I asked why they didn’t let her out of the house and they said she seemed lost and upset. Well, she was probably upset at being locked up in a strange house. She is obviously well taken care of and even has a collar. She belongs to somebody. We don’t even live in a neighborhood with any stray cats. I am also suspicious that the first thing you do when you find a cat is not to try and find the owners, but to take her the vet. Especially, since she went missing on Friday and we found her on Sunday. Did they take her there right away? Or did they lie about that?
This leads me to believe that they definitely intended to keep her. Lulu is friendly, beautiful and probably great with their little daughter. He also didn’t seem too eager to give her back to us, either.
I don’t know when or if I will let Lulu out again. I just feel paranoid and like I can’t trust my neighbors. At least I would know where to look if she goes missing again.
Admin note: Lulu’s wandering didn’t stop there, as you can read in this letter to the editor.