It was a dark and stormy night... No, actually, it was just a pretty normal day. My cat kept coming to the front door, looking for all the world like he was ready to come back inside, and then as soon as I opened the door, he would run about 10 feet away and look back at me.
This got irritating after about...two times. On the third attempt, I got the impression he might want me to follow him. So I did. And he did. Every fifty feet or so, he would stop and look back at me to make sure I was still following. I started to think he might be leading me to a neighbor in distress. (Do cats do that? Or is that just a dog thing?)
I followed him to the back yard of a neighbor three doors down from us, and he proceeded to run up the stairs onto their back deck. That was weird, I thought. Still thinking I possibly had a 9-1-1 situation coming, I went around to the front door and rang the bell. No one was home. I went again to the back door, where my cat (Mako) was clearly expecting to be let inside, and gingerly tried opening that door, thinking, "Is it breaking and entering if you don't actually break anything?" Didn't matter--it was locked.
Then it dawned on me that, most likely, he wanted in there because he's been let in before and probably been rewarded for his friendliness. Lots of bells started going off in my head. So THAT's why he hasn't seemed that hungry lately! So THAT's why he's had diarrhea for two months! So THAT's why we can't seem to find him till about 5pm every day! Now what do we do about it?
I chewed on this for a few weeks, deciding that I would only go and confront these neighbors if we absolutely couldn't find the cat one day. Which turned out to be last Wednesday. So I headed over to that house, silently praying that it wouldn't turn into something nasty...did they think he was their cat? He doesn't wear a collar, after all.
I called for him all the way over there, banging on a little can of Fancy Feast with a fork--something he only gets when that's the only way to get him to come in. (Who's training whom?) As I approached the neighbor's house, I spotted Mako crouching by their garage door. He turned away from me. Bad kitty! Whatever they're feeding him, it must be pretty good! Otherwise, why wouldn't he want to come home and be loved and squished by my 4-year old?
I got down on his level and tried again to get him to come to me. At that moment, a man came out the front door. "Hello," I said. "Are you familiar with this cat?"
"Well, yes," he answered. Uh-oh.
"Oh, okay. This is my cat."
He sighed. "Okay, well, you better come inside." I followed him in. He explained that his wife had been letting my cat in for a year and a half! They'd been wondering when this conversation would happen. It was a little strange, standing in their house, seeing how perfectly comfortable Mako was in there. They call him their "Day Kitty." She had pictures of him on her phone. They had named him "Elvis." ? Well, at least they knew he was a boy and didn't call him "Arabella" or "Miss Prissy" or something like that.
In the end, we exchanged addresses and phone numbers, and I said it was fine if she continued to let him in as long as she let him back out mid-afternoon, so we'd be able to find him. The other stipulation was that they really couldn't feed him any more, since he's been to the vet a few times to try and solve the ..hmmm-hmmm...diarrhea problem.
When I told the kids about it, they seemed slightly concerned about him having two homes. I explained we weren't trying to figure out who loves him more, (and Eric immediately muttered, "They do,") but we were happy to know he was so loved in our neighborhood. Nathan is still skeptical.
Maybe we should claim alienation of affection and stick them with the vet bills. Just kidding. They are very nice people. And they have excellent taste in pets.
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