My Alley Cat

My cat got out the door a couple of weeks ago while chasing another cat who had been urinating at my doorstep. She used to be an alley cat whom I rescued about 3 years ago from work where she was hanging around the parking lot and was being fed by my co-workers. What enamored me to this cat was that she would approach just about anybody to be fed and allow them to pet her. During one of my off days, I just went back to my jobsite with a pet carrier and essentially kidnapped this cat from the parking lot. My co-workers didn’t mind because they knew I had been taking care of one or two cats at home for years. When I had her spayed, the vet informed me that she was pregnant so they had to “take care” of the underdeveloped babies. I didn’t want to know what they had to do but at least my new cat had been “fixed” and would not have unwanted kittens again.

I planned on keeping Boo as an indoor cat and that transition was probably difficult for her. She would spend a lot of time staring out the window at the birds outside or hiss at some cat that would come to my door usually to mark the spot. It must be a territorial competition thing with them. Last year Boo even managed to get out the door to chase another cat, then spent the day sunning herself on my neighbor’s patio before I finally managed to catch her and get her back indoors. Her coat was full of dirt and leaves by then.

So it didn’t surprise be very much when she got out the door and chased another cat a couple of weeks ago. The difference this time is that she disappeared for a few days. Then as mysteriously as she disappeared, she reappeared a few days ago peering into my screen door. But when I try to go out and get her, she would run away. I’m not up to doing wind sprints anymore because of my running injuries so I am not able to catch up with her. Anyway, it doesn’t look like she has had any ill-effects of being outdoors. I didn’t see any visible injuries from afar and she hasn’t lost weight, so apparently she has found another food source (the birds?!). So although I miss Boo being close to me, I’m glad that she is surviving in the environment that she is more comfortable in. I hope she comes and visits once in awhile so I can see that she is doing okay. The good thing is that she has been spayed and would not be contributing to cat overpopulation. In short, you can take a cat out of the alley, but you can’t take the alley out of the cat.

Postscript: There is an upside of not having a cat after all these years. The smell of litter is (almost) gone, and after using the carpet sweeper and vacuum, there are no more visible granules of tracked litter and cat hair all over the place (although the deeply imbedded ones still come up to the surface once in a while).