The Best Birthday Present

I am SO happy and relieved right now, because our little Stubby is back home!

I got a call at work yesterday, at around 4:40, from someone who said they thought they had our cat. I asked them if he had a collar on, and the guy said, "Yeah, a blue one." Then I could hear his wife saying in the background, "S-T-U-B-B-Y" like she was reading his tag. I practically yelled into the phone, "THAT'S HIM!"

It turned out they lived in our neighborhood, about 1-2 blocks from our house! Apparently the wife was out walking when she heard Stubby meowing his head off from under a bush. She recognized him from one of our fliers, and they decided to check him out and hang out with him while they called me. Luckily, it sounded like they had no problem getting him to come to them (that's Stubby for you), and they were able to pick him up and keep him in their house until we were able to get there. I guess he hid under their couch for a bit, but quickly warmed up and started venturing out.

It was so great to see them holding him when we walked up to their door!

He definitely lost some weight during his 3 days out, but other than that, he seemed none the worse for wear. When we got home, the first thing he did was eat, and then he promptly went to sleep. He seemed pretty exhausted, understandably.

I do wonder what he was doing those 3 days, because Marc and I must've walked and driven around all over, and we never heard a peep. It's possibly he's just been hiding and laying low until he finally got brave enough to call for help. I have a feeling he may have been scared off by some of the cats on our street, in particular this black cat that everyone seems to have seen at one point or another (I tried to approach it once, but it ran off - it looks like it has a collar, so it might be good to confirm that it's a neighbor's cat, and not lost).

Anyways, we tried to give the people a reward, but they refused to take it. I think we'll probably buy them a gift of some sort and drop it off, as we feel like we should thank them with something.

It has definitely been a learning experience! We're going to take both cats in this weekend to get microchipped like we should've done earlier, and we're seriously considering getting Stubby a GPS collar once those are available for cats! In all seriousness, the cost of a GPS collar would be more than offset by the cost savings from printing up fliers, reward money, etc.

Stubby seems pretty happy to be back home. Bandit and Snuggles spent some time checking him out while he tried to nap. Snuggles is still looking at him a bit cross-eyed like she'd already forgotten him, and can't figure out why there's suddenly another cat in the house (we think Snuggles may be...how do you say it...like, the bulb isn't operating at full wattage? But that's why we love her).

Whew!