Adventerous Kitty

The cat decided to go on an adventure. And while he's fine now, the last day was a little harrowing.

Onyx is an indoor kitty. It's not just that we don't let him go outside; he mostly won't go outside. I've carried him into our backyard a couple of times, and he always flips his shit and runs back inside as soon as he can escape from my arms. He may sit at the back door for hours staring outside, but as soon as we open the door he disappears.

This led to us being a little lax about leaving the back door open. Especially now that we have a dog. Kina likes to go in and out. She'll explore the backyard for a bit, then come back in to make sure we're still around before going outside again. Mostly we close the door when we go up or downstairs. Certainly if we're going to leave the house.

Unfortunately I forgot to do this at some point on Sunday. Either that, or the cat was sneakier than I can really imagine him being.

While I was putting laundry away on Sunday afternoon, I noticed that Onyx wasn't in his usual spot under the bed. I had been impressed that he wasn't howling at the dog, but it turned out he just wasn't there. I assumed he had found a new and exciting hiding place and tried to put it out of my mind.

I went the rest of the day without seeing the cat, which isn't that unusual. I mentioned this to Kevin, and we weren't able to find the cat after a quick search. But we decided not to worry too much. He'd come out when he got hungry enough.

Early Monday morning we were woken up by fight outside. Kevin assured me that the howling was too high pitched to have been Onyx. But when I noticed that he hadn't touched his food I began to get really worried.

There wasn't much I could do, so I went to work and tried to keep my mind off the cat. When Kevin got home, he put the dog in the basement and left the back door open so Onyx could come home if he wanted to. I sat in the backyard and read for a while, occasionally calling for Onyx, but he never showed up. I decided to go searching through the woods behind our house to see if I could find him, certain that if I found him at all he wouldn't be alive.

Eventually the sun went down and I had to go home. A few hours later, Kevin went back out with a flashlight. When we called Onyx this time, he meowed back. But since it was so dark, it took us a while to find him. It turned out he was sitting on the neighbor's fence.

We went to collect him, but he ran away, hopping from one back yard to the next. So we went inside to give him some time to calm down and decided to try again in a little bit. It didn't take long for Onyx to make his way inside on his own. I think the prospect of food and water is what ultimately convinced him to come home.

It seems that Onyx spent most of the day and night hanging out under our neighbor's deck. He didn't have any scratches or bruises. The worst he seems to have suffered is a little bit of dirt. I'm really happy that he managed to make it home okay. I'll definitely be more careful about keeping the door closed in the future.