Despite looking just like Shahja (except a bit more white on the chin, a bit less white on the bib, and subtly different marks around the nose), answering to his name, cuddling in the two-legged’s arms and purring up a storm, and doing many of the same things the Tiger Baby did, the kitty the human picked up on Wednesday was not the missing member of the Terrible Twins. As the human found out the next day, not only was that hungry kitty not microchipped, but it wasn’t even a he — a particularly sad commentary for a former farm girl. The mystery kitty was a she and a nursing mom who has since been reunited with her kittens (plus two additional rescue kittens who lost their mom). Back to square one we go. Shahja is still missing, although there has been another citing that also wasn’t him. Hopefully, he’s getting bored with his 2+ month outdoor adventure and will return to his family very soon.
(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Top image mine; bottom image from Beth.
The human had a very challenging end of May. First her car died and required an expensive repair. Then her mother passed away suddenly. Next, Shahja got sick — a UTI and possibly a stone in the urinary tract — which necessitated a trip to the emergency veterinary service. The 2-legged then had to take Shahja to her regular vet for boarding, as she was leaving at 4 am the next day to drive back for her mother’s funeral. She made that grueling 12-hour drive twice in 36 hours. When she picked Shahja up at the vets the day after her return, the poor little guy was groggy from meds and unhappy from having been poked, prodded, scanned, caged, and medicated by strangers for the past 5 days, so she opened his soft-sided carrier’s zipper just wide enough to stick her hand in to pet him on the drive home. Between stress and sleep deprivation, when she got him home, she got out of the vehicle without remembering to fully secure the carrier’s zipper. She got 10 feet from the front door when the little guy saw the opening and barreled out of the carrier. He’s been missing ever since — 58 long and stressful days.
For the first month or so, he mostly stayed nearby and the human occasionally saw him in the yard or on the deck, not that she could get him to come inside. However, for the past few weeks, she hasn’t seen him at all. Fortunately, he and his sister were microchipped when they were spayed/neutered in January, so the monitoring service was able to alert the human last evening that someone had seen him — or a cat that looked like him. A conversation with that person led to second alert this morning that another family had found a tiger kitty and put him in a carrier. The two-legged dashed off to see if it was Shahaja and it was. We are happy to report that he’s now home and recuperating from his summer of adventure. He’s definitely lost weight but otherwise doesn’t look too bad given all the dangers he potentially faced, including heat, pounding rain and wind, fireworks, dogs, coyotes, other cats, cars, and mean humans. It’s a miracle he’s home alive and well. He’s quite the cuddle muffin and has been singing and mixing up a storm.
It will take some time for him to adjust to being indoors again and around other cats. And the other cats seem to not recognize this new cat that is in the house, so Shahja is in one of the bedrooms where he can rest, eat, be hugged and petted, and hopefully get used to being back inside. For all those who prayed for his safe return, thank you! For those who might be considering the option of microchipping, it’s likely the only reason we were able to get him back home.
(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.
Living with Carnivores 