Strider hasn’t come home yet. I’ve nearly given up hope. It’s been more than 24 hours since he’s been missing, already.
Today we left flyers at the two vets in the town near us, and at the county animal control shelter, filled out a missing animal report there as well. I’ve listed an ad online at petfinders. Frank has talked to most of the people in our subdivision, that’s about 50 to 60 people perhaps … at there being nearly 70 houses here. There is a junk yard behind our subdivision. We live in the middle, with trees across the street from the front of the house, and the street behind us is further, with another property behind ours of course, then across that street behind houses there are trees, with the junk yard right behind that. Across from the front of us the trees are thick and deep, all part of the properties that houses are on. There is a deep ravine there as well … who knows what is down there. Did Strider go any of those directions? Or did he linger outside of someone’s house and he’s inside, but someone who we haven’t talked to yet.
Where did he go. Where oh where did he go.
After all this I was remembering about Bleu, he went out a door while we were gone and never came back back in 1999. But in the recesses of my mind I’m recalling that sometime previous to that he got out and was gone … for a few days or more, don’t recall how long … but that he did come home and we took him to the vet for a check over, to make sure he wasn’t injured. We talked about quarantining him in case he contracted something while out … but logistically it wasn’t possible. So then sometime about a year to a year and a half later, he got out for the second and last time.
Based on that, there is hope that Strider will come back. Why this had to happen, I just can’t say. It’s put my mind once again on pet rescue. Just this last Nov 1st it was there, weighing heavily on my mind, as the pups were found. There are websites to help, but that’s not good enough, in my estimation. There needs to be some thing better out there.
I’m not happy with what I’ve found. I consider this to be just one more notch on my experience walking stick … that is branching me out, yet honing me in on future expansion of ministry to community. Not just niche farming, but rescuing animals, picking up feral cat colonies, and having a website and notification and search website for people missing pets and finding strays, and having tools to make the right kind of flyers and posters and where to go and what to do and more.
How to do this all as a private organization, not a State licensed one … that’s the tough part. $$$$$ Well I’m bound and determined to do something like the above, as my God given tasks in life as wife, mother, and steward of living things.
We have, hopefully will return to this number, 6 cats, all self-rescued or adopted from rescue operations, and 2 puppies self-rescued.
I am hoping to become better equipped to train pups and adult dogs to be good obedient companions. I don’t need any training for cats, that’s what I was born being good with. I would love to have a big barn on our next property, just for cats.
One place we found today that supposedly has a high feral population around it, of course, the junk yard. The man there told Frank he guesses there’s at least 100 cats around. That’s the kind of places where I’d love to be able to go and trap the cats and bring them to my cat barn to live, and find homes for the ones I can. Let the rest live there, eating raw food and being happy. I love kitties. I just need that property and the barn. And a good supply of chickens and rabbits and such, from my future farm, for their food.
All of this weighs on me as I think of Strider and where he may be, hoping he is still alive and healthy, and asking God to please watch over him and bring him back home safe and sound. It’s a good release, not to dwell miserably on just my own missing cat, but to use this as feul for ideas to help others. That’s why I go through anything I do, to help others. That’s what I seem to run into time and again, it’s a continuing theme in my life.
Dear sweet Strider, please come home. I sure wish you will soon, and that when you get here you can talk to me and let me know everything you did, every place you went, everything you saw, while you were away, and let me know why you left, and what made you decide to return home. Ah, if only it were possible. Well, we look for him on our walks with the dogs. I go out front and back and call for him often. Loudly and softly. It’s now 5pm, so it’s been 39 hours since Strider went missing.