In November last year, our cat went missing for 3 weeks. We were reunited through a lady on Facebook who posted in the lost and found pets page. She had wandered quite far! It’s about a 15 minute walk away, I had no idea she went that far!
Because the lady had seen her hanging around her garden day and night in all weather, she assumed she was lost so started feeding her and providing shelter while she tried to find who she belonged to.
When I got her back, I kept her in for a while but she doesn’t cope well with that at all and was very stressed and not herself. Crying day and night etc but I wanted to make sure she knew that was her home still. Since then she has been back to that house twice, and the woman who lives there is not happy at all. My cat isn’t a pest, she isn’t doing anything wrong but she wants to go inside. She said all she can hear while trying to watch TV is my cat meowing on her wall over and over again. She tries to ignore her but it gets annoying so she gives in, or she ends up feeling sorry for her if she’s sat outside in the rain. My cat will just sit outside her back door waiting for her to open it. I have suggested that she just ignores her because eventually she will come back home, or for her to text me and soon as she sees her and I will come over and collect her.
However my cat has been missing again for just over a week. I put posts on Facebook etc and just assumed that if she’d made her way back to the other lady’s house, she would’ve told me. I messaged her anyway, and she said my cat has been at hers every day. I asked her why she didn’t tell me but she said it’s my responsibility to check and that I’m going to have to keep my cat indoors because she doesn’t want to take ownership. I said she has been missing for over a week so how has she survived? Lo and behold.. she was feeding her! Why not just message me to come and get her?!
How do I handle this situation? I don’t know what to do. She is 7 years old and loves to be outside and exploring, I can’t take that away from her, it’s not fair to her and she wouldn’t cope. I really feel like it’s down to the other person to just stop feeding her and ignore her and she will come back home. I understand it’s hard and it does sound annoying to have her hanging around the house crying, but if she perseveres she will surely give up and come home?