Need help. Missing Kitten =(

Hello Everyone,

I don't know what else to do. I have a 7.5 month old kitten who is an indoor/outdoor kitty. She doesn't stay outside for longer than a half an hour to an hour at any given time. She doesn't like the cold. I live in a suburb of Boston. Last saturday( the 12th), after a snowstorm had just wrapped up I went outside to shovel and let her out with me. Since the storm was over and it was starting to warm up (the snow was actually melting by the end of it). An hour later I called for her but she never came in. I called her all night and she never came back. This is not like her at all. She's very domestic and snuggles a lot. She's not aggressive at ALL. She is small but almost grown, and has not yet been spayed/neutured. It has been 5 days she's been missing and I'm heart broken. I don't know how else to try to find her. I put up posters, stuck leaflets in mailboxes around my neighborhood. I put an add in the local paper that came out today. No one has reported a found cat or called me.
I live in a suburb with connecting woods. I have put food outside and it remains untouched. I put catnip in the yard, my sweaty clothes on the deck and her litter sprinkled around to catch her scent. She is no where to be found. My question is has anyone had a cat lost in the winter longer than a week and it came home? I'm scared to death that she is freezing and hungry and will die if she doesn't come home soon. There is still about 2 feet of snow on the ground. The good news is that it hasn't dipped below 25 degrees at night since she's been missing and the days have been in the 40's. I really need some advice. Should I just assume that she is gone, or should I keep up hope? Does anyone have any advice or stories of survival in the same scenario? Thank you SO much inadvance. I'm heartbroken. =( =( I will make her an inside only cat if she ever comes back. I'm so sad.

THank you.

~Kt

KT, I'm so sorry to hear about your missing kitten! It's very possible that she is literally out sewing her wild oats since she is 7.5 months old and not yet neutered.

I'll move this to SOS for more help for you, and ideas for finding her.

Heidi,

Thank you SO much! I appreciate your help and I really hope that's all she's doing. If so, she must be having one heck of a week!!! While I stay up nights worried sick=(

Thank you again!

~Katie

If this makes you feel better, I can tell you that our Mooie cat was gone for a few days during a snowstorm, then returned late on Christmas Eve when the outside temperature had dipped to below 0 degrees.

Shed cat (a true feral) that I've been feeding has survived the entire winter up until now by being completely outdoors.

I think that cats are more resilient than we would believe.

Good luck on finding your kitten. I hope she returns home soon!

We are having some major computer glitches with this website- but you should be able to find some of the resources you need here- excuse the mess, I guess it is in the remodeling stage right now


http://www.lost-pets.org/lost_cat/

my cat was missing five days. i spent the whole time crying thinking she was cold, hungrey and alone when she was infact shacked up with a big grey tom having the time of her life!

she came home a little skinny but very perky and pleased with herself when she was good and ready.

i doubt very much she'll be gone more than 2weeks

Originally Posted by maverick_kitten

my cat was missing five days. i spent the whole time crying thinking she was cold, hungrey and alone when she was infact shacked up with a big grey tom having the time of her life!

she came home a little skinny but very perky and pleased with herself when she was good and ready.

i doubt very much she'll be gone more than 2weeks

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That would be nice if it were true that they don't stay gone. But the reality is that once they are outside they are terrified and at great risk. The sooner you act to get them back, the better it will be.

i think it depends on the cat. if she was in heat as she was unspayed her hormones would play a big factor in her running away. hopefully when she has mated she will return.

if she is an indoor/outdoor kitty there is more chance she will come home as she will know the area.

i agree that the sooner you act the better and Kt has done a lot to try to get her back. the only other thing i can suggest is trying to look for her in the very early morning/late night around 2/3ish as thats when we spotted Maverick out and about

Thanks again everyone. I don't know what I'd do without all of these great suggestions. Ok, so far when she first went missing I put 50 flyers in the mailbox of people next to me and I hung a couple up on telephone polls. I have since gotten much better about this. I blew up color pictures of her to 8'' x 10'' and I bought that giant neon poster board and cut them in half. I made big 'missing' posters and mapped out my neighbrohood within a 2 mile radius and I put them on all of the places where there are stop signs (not on the stop signs but near them) so that anyone coming or going to their home would have to stop at one point and look! They are great signs, you can't miss them. I bought the wrong size trap so i had to exchange it today so tonight will be my first time trapping. Last night, for the first time in 7 days since i left food out, it was eaten!! This could be by any number of creatures but I don't care, at least it's some hope! I have the trap set up next to the house near the bushes, the last place I saw her and her favorite hiding space outside. I sprayed a towel with Feliway and put it over the top and i put food her favorite food in it. I have written letters and spoken to all of my neighboors asking them to look in sheds, under decks etc. My sister's boyfriend has a hound dog so he came over and let the dog smell the kitties bed and then they headed out for an hour long hike. They didn't find her but they did say that they say *no* coyote tracks (in the snow) whatsoever, that is extremely relieving to me! This might sound dumb but I bought a baby monitor so that I can listen to the sounds just outside of the house to see if the trap falls or if she meow's while I'm indoors, I can hear her. I also keep going outside and sitting and listening, walking around the yard calling her. I keep shaing her food and cat nip too. Now I just sit and wait I guess. My question to those who found their kitties after a month or more.. how often did you continue to put up new signs, hand out flyers and put ads in the paper? I'm trying not to "overkill" so that my neighbors will be helpful and not annoyed so I don't know what the proper time is to redo all this effort. If I don't hear anything in the next week, should I send out more flyers? Hang up more posters? Or give it two weeks. I'm just not sure.. all I know is that I dont' want to stop until she comes home. Tonight is a week ago exactly that I saw her for the last time =(

ps. Yes, she has been outdoors. She was mainly a housecat but she would go out once or twice a day for a half an hour or so. She only "dissapeared" once until 5am about a week before she went missing, so she was beggining to get a little more adventurous. I was going to buy her a harness and make her indoor only once the weather got warmer. She hated the cold/snow so I didn't think I'd have a problem with her roaming/getting lost until spring.

Ktee,

I live in the suburbs of Boston too, perhaps you can post a picture of your kitty so I can keep an eye out as well? It doesn't hurt to have an extra set of eyes out there.

Chris in Somerville

Wow! You are to be commended for being so thorough! One thing that will help as well is if you have soiled litter and you can sprinkle that outside? Also do you know how she got out? Is there a way to make the same way back in safe? Where she could access the home but a robber or a thief can't?

It really sounds like you have covered all bases and the only thing I can add is keep track of where you put the signs up and keep extra signs, markers and strapping tape or staples in your car so you can refresh the signs. You might also try calling the local radio stations, sometimes they run free on ads for lost pets- good luck! I am pulling for you to find your little one

When my Spawn went missing I took all of Hissy's advice... I don't remember how long she was gone (I'm thinking around 5 days), but how I finally found her was I went out very late at night and started calling her when the rest of the neighborhood was quiet. I think she was scared to come back to me during the day with all the noises from cars, dogs, etc.

I wish you all the luck in the world, and I'm sending 'come home kitty' vibes!!!

I hope you find her as well.

UPDATE: Someone saw her!! I just got a phone call about an hour ago from someone who saw my sign. He said he saw her on a street that is not far from mine at all. She was "running around" around there. He didn't leave his name or anything so he didn't see too concerned with the reward part at all. I went down there with my mom and we took food and catnip and called and called for an hour. We talked to a bunch of neighbors. The guy who called me seemed positive it was her. I am hugely releived but at the same time extremely frustrated. She's so close why won't she just come home! Is she lost? Maybe she can't catch her scent? Will she ever find her way back?? What should I do next? I'm thinking about walking that street tonight when it gets dark. Maybe that way she can catch my scent and follow it home =(.

On the entertaining side: I cought a baby racoon in my trap lol. I let it go, but at least the trap works lol.

Good luck with finding her - I hope he was right and that it is her and that you get her. But I suggest you don't go wandering around strange streets on your own late at night.

The first time she went outside and stayed out until 5am she was probably in heat because she is the right age. That should have been a warning that she needs to stay inside until she is spayed. Now, you realize, she will probably come back pregnant and your kitten, who technically is way too young to have babies, will be a mother. As soon as she comes back (I am thinking positively for you here!! ) you need to take her to the vet. She could have picked up many diseases from the male cats she has been with. I hope she is UTD on shots and vaccines if you are letting her outside in the first place. Also to check her out to see if she is pregnant. If she is pregnant, you could have her spayed immediately and then she will not have the kittens. She is not old enough to be a responsible mother and could reject or even kill the babies. Or like a 7 month old cat at my shelter did, have them too early, in the litterbox and cover them with litter. Not to scare you but it can happen.

I hope so much for you that she comes back and the fact that you have seen her is a good sign. You are doing everything you can by putting up fliers and good thing people in the neighborhood are kind enough to read it and rememebr to call you. If you know anyone in the neighborhood where she was last seen, ask them if you can set a trap in their front yard or porch or under some bushes maybe. Please stick to what you said and keep her indoors AT LEAST until she is spayed. Good luck to you and I really hope she comes back.

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and support. Rest assured if she comes back she's going straight to the vets to get checked out and spayed and she will stay indoors permanantly.

Well, I'm still hanging in there. I have done everything I can do. The only thing I haven't tried is the dog whistle. I even used keyhole (you can download this at google.com under the tools they offer) to get a better look at the terrain in my area and I was able to measure that her siting was less than 1/4 of a mile from my house through the back woods. It is directly behind my house 1/4 a mile back. I can't get in there though because it's swampland and there's snow so i have been walking on the roads to get there to kind of "circle" the area so maybe she can hear and smell me and come home. I put out about 6 cans of tuna fish on my poarch today, I'm trying to stink out the competition lol, as I found a shed that was propped open with a big giant platter of cat food and a big giant bowl of water and an industrial sized bag of cat food around the area where she was spotted, so I'm guessing this person is feeding the local strays in the area. i gave her a flyer so we'll see what turns up.

I am going to try to dog whistle tonight since she's so close to home, it's worth a shot.

wish me luck, I have been getting very depressed lately and afraid I'll never see her again =(

ps. I havent trapped any more critters lately.
~Kt

Try putting out dry dog food, not cat food. Put it out in an area away from the street but under street lights. Put it out after dusk and make sure you fling small amounts in a wide area (it will take her longer to eat it and she could get spotted) Dog food (dry) the scent carries farther, though the snow is a big factor as well for blocking out the scent.

She has probably partnered up or colonized with other cats, and they are showing her that is wise to stay hidden. That's what happens, it isn't that she has forgotten you, it's just her natural instincts are in high gear right now.Plus you don't have any idea if someone has frightened her and made her fear humans now. I pray you find her soon-