When I was a teenager, we had two cats. My father got a job offer to move to the UK. We lived in a small town in Sweden so the quarantine laws made it difficult to take them with us so we found two great homes - one with a friend of ours and the other was the family that bought our house.
So we moved to the UK and was awaiting the removal van. We got a desperate call that our black and white cat had disappeared from the people that bought our house. He was nowhere to be found. THREE weeks later the van appeared with our furniture. When I got home from school, my parents told me that our cat was probably in the van but wouldn't come out and they didn't want to scare him so they bribed the removal guys to take an extended break until he would come out on his own. As he was MY cat, he came out gingerly when I called him. Three weeks without food or water. Poor cat. We got him rehydrated and within a couple of weeks, he was back to normal and setting out his territory.
My mother was taking her Cambridge Certificate in English. For one of her projects, she had to write an essay, so she decided to write the story about our cat................ As luck (NO) would have it, one of the ladies happened to be married to a senior RSPCA (welfare agency in the UK) officer who told her hubby the story. We got a call from the RSPCA that we had to destroy the cat as we had broken UK animal immigration laws.
The evening when my father took my cat to the vet, I was on a sports trip in France. It was lashing down with rain. When my father got to the vet and opened the door to the cage, my cat ran out before they could catch him. They couldn't find him so my father had to drive back home. When he got home and stepped indoors, he heard a miaou. My cat was waiting outside the front door. So he called the vet who told my father that he could come back. So off they went again. And guess what ... my cat scampered again. And again they didn't find him, so my father had to drive back home without knowing what happened to him. And you guessed it, my cat appeared again at home soon after my father had gone indoors. He had hidden in the wheel arch of our car and hitched a ride both times several miles.
And you thought the story ended here? Wish it had.
So the next morning, my mother told my cat "why couldn't he get LOST" in an irritated voice as officers from the RSPCA were coming to check that we had put down our cat that day; although they had decided to keep him and made a deal with the Vet that if the RSPCA called him which they did, he would tell them that my cat had been put down as he agreed with my parents that it was not meant for my cat to go to cat heaven yet. He disappeared and we never saw him again - even with extensive searches, missing adverts and so on. It seemed as if he thought, "I come all the way from Sweden without food or water for three weeks to be with you, and you do this to me? I guess I am not welcome here! HE DEFINITELY KNEW SOMETHING BAD was going to happen at the vet!"
AND HOW DO I KNOW THIS STORY? MY PARENTS TOLD ME 20 YEARS LATER WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAT!!!
Should I blame my parents for the events or that they did not tell me the truth what happened until 20 years later? Actually, I think they did the right thing as I would have never forgiven them when it all happened. At least it saved the peace in the family but I would like to meet him in cat heaven when I pass away and ask him what happened to him. Still think about him all this time later.
So we moved to the UK and was awaiting the removal van. We got a desperate call that our black and white cat had disappeared from the people that bought our house. He was nowhere to be found. THREE weeks later the van appeared with our furniture. When I got home from school, my parents told me that our cat was probably in the van but wouldn't come out and they didn't want to scare him so they bribed the removal guys to take an extended break until he would come out on his own. As he was MY cat, he came out gingerly when I called him. Three weeks without food or water. Poor cat. We got him rehydrated and within a couple of weeks, he was back to normal and setting out his territory.
My mother was taking her Cambridge Certificate in English. For one of her projects, she had to write an essay, so she decided to write the story about our cat................ As luck (NO) would have it, one of the ladies happened to be married to a senior RSPCA (welfare agency in the UK) officer who told her hubby the story. We got a call from the RSPCA that we had to destroy the cat as we had broken UK animal immigration laws.
The evening when my father took my cat to the vet, I was on a sports trip in France. It was lashing down with rain. When my father got to the vet and opened the door to the cage, my cat ran out before they could catch him. They couldn't find him so my father had to drive back home. When he got home and stepped indoors, he heard a miaou. My cat was waiting outside the front door. So he called the vet who told my father that he could come back. So off they went again. And guess what ... my cat scampered again. And again they didn't find him, so my father had to drive back home without knowing what happened to him. And you guessed it, my cat appeared again at home soon after my father had gone indoors. He had hidden in the wheel arch of our car and hitched a ride both times several miles.
And you thought the story ended here? Wish it had.
So the next morning, my mother told my cat "why couldn't he get LOST" in an irritated voice as officers from the RSPCA were coming to check that we had put down our cat that day; although they had decided to keep him and made a deal with the Vet that if the RSPCA called him which they did, he would tell them that my cat had been put down as he agreed with my parents that it was not meant for my cat to go to cat heaven yet. He disappeared and we never saw him again - even with extensive searches, missing adverts and so on. It seemed as if he thought, "I come all the way from Sweden without food or water for three weeks to be with you, and you do this to me? I guess I am not welcome here! HE DEFINITELY KNEW SOMETHING BAD was going to happen at the vet!"
AND HOW DO I KNOW THIS STORY? MY PARENTS TOLD ME 20 YEARS LATER WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAT!!!
Should I blame my parents for the events or that they did not tell me the truth what happened until 20 years later? Actually, I think they did the right thing as I would have never forgiven them when it all happened. At least it saved the peace in the family but I would like to meet him in cat heaven when I pass away and ask him what happened to him. Still think about him all this time later.
