One of our cats, the youngest, went absent without leave yesterday.....well let's say he went out at about 10 am.....after his morning scoff....all day in windy, wet and cold weather.

He was still out at 10.30pm.......

By 8pm I was starting to get very worried. By 10.30pm I was frantic with concern. Between those hours I went out dressed for the weather to whistle him and call him (he comes to the whistle everytime). I checked the garage...no sign of him there.

At 11.15pm he sauntered in through the cat flap, I made a fuss of him and he looked at me as if to say "What's the problem been?" He had a full meal, and then went out again! :o ....the weather was still vile. :confused:

He has gone AWOL before, but only once..in summer weather.

I though "Blow this" and went to bed. He was in the house this morning, fast asleep.

He's a neutered cat, by the way. Perhaps he hasn't realised it yet! :hihi:

Any way a few days ago he decided to supervise my wife doing a bit of pruning in the garden. How he did it I don't know, but he climbed precariously up a very spindly shrub in the garden beside her and perched virtually "on air" and I took a couple of pictures through the window.

Sorry the pics aren't great, the window glass reflections spoil them (I rushed to get the camera) but I'm posting them on here anyway. He's more than 2ft off the ground, although the angle makes it look ground level and must have been very uncomfortable. He was fidgeting like mad to stay aloft.

My scamp Pic1 (http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d65/shoeshine22/DSC00082.jpg?t=1165421467)

My scamp Pic2 (http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d65/shoeshine22/DSC00086.jpg?t=1165421578)

How can people even think of causing harm to animals is beyong me. Pets really are a part of one's family life.

Well me and KitKat are not speaking at the moment. Firstly because he keeps naffing off for days at a time (sure hes lodging elsewhere) he came in yesterday and I made a fuss, gave him some lovely treats and went out to a meeting.

Came home and where did I find him.. ONLY SLEEPING ON TOP OF THE RATTIES CAGE! :o :o

Poor little beggers must have been petrified. Anyway I shooed him off and he promptly left the building after giving me a dirty look. he came back this morning for breakfast and left again. :rolleyes:

aww shoeshine what a bautiful cat!!!!

my two cats are in my bad books as saturday night they brought in a mouse :(

im used to that, but this one was very much alive and scarpered upstairs! by the time we went to bed it still wasnt found! so i slept downstairs, and locked myself in living room, while OH went to bed. Couple of hours later i was still awake, and moousey went running by me!!! it must have sneaked into living room earlier, and id locked it in with me!

i was terrified, so ran upstairs to bed with OH, tried again to sleep, shut the door. but i thought i could hear mousey, but thought it must be the rain hammerin againts the window. i glanced at the window and mousey was running down the curtain - few inches from my feet!!! i screamed and OH tried to catch it, but funnily enough didnt. so i had to change rooms again :(

next morning mousey was found playing with my boy cat - still alive!!!

so from now on the window in our house is kept shut, and cats can only get back in once ive made sure there are no furry creatures in their mouths!!

Shoeshine, he's lovely..

Weenireeni - our cats do this, little buggers they are...

I've lost countless mice, but have also caught countless ones too. One of our cats, kills them and leaves them right outside the bedroom door :o

Our other cat doesn't want to kill them, she just thinks they're fun and then she either loses them, or they die of fright while she's playing with them :rolleyes:

However, since we got the dogs, the cats won't go in the kitchen and we have found little mouse nibbles in the parmesan tub... so no - I wouldn't be without my pets :D

We've got the three cats.....the mouse killer......and "Executioner" is probably the right word, is the female...she kills then on sight.

The laddie in the photos on the OP just plays with them. He brought one in the house about 3 months ago and dropped it at my feet. The poor devil feigned death. I protected the mouse by standing over it and protecting it with my "Trainered" feet. I thought it was dead, but it scampered off into a corner of the louge. Doors shut.....trapped in the room.

Along came the "Executioner" but the mouse scurried away at a rate of knots under a sofa.....to appear 2 minutes later racing across the floor to a corner. The "Executioner" was waiting for it to run again.....

I managed to get a glass over it, walked outside with the package, and released it into the wild once more.

The "Executioner" gave me a disdainful look when I returned to the house. The younger cat (in the photos) just seemed puzzled as to where his "toy" had gone.

I will tell you a tale on another day....with photos, to demonstrate the "cowardly" actions of the photo cat......a mouse.....and "The Executioner" .......

ps the third cat just sleeps, eats best chicken breast, endearingly shows affection to me and my wife, and torments the other two cats to distraction when we are not looking! :)

Thankfully 3 of my 4 cats are now getting on a bit, and like soft comfy sleeping places and the central heating too much to spend too much time out of the house, or to expend too much energy chasing anything.

The fourth cat, a 2 year old hand-reared feral monster affectionately referred to as 'Baby', but whose real name is Domino (since she was found as a tiny kitten and her tummy is white with black spots on- I was having a lateral day on the naming that day), chases things, but whatever she does with them, she doesn't bring them in- which is fine by me.

As far as I'm concerned, getting up or coming home to empty house would be just awful, and there's nothing like a genuine snuggle and a purr from a furry teddy in bed to make you feel good. The day I can't afford to have cats is the day I offer to foster animals for some charity or other- I don't think I ever want to be without them.

My idiot went out last night and 10 minutes after he went into the cold darkness the heavens opened and it pis- rained a lot.
I left the back door open as I usually do when hes out and worried... and worried...
About 15 minutes after the rain stopped he came waltzing in dry as a bone! Where the hell do they go to?

Well- two of mine have the ability to stay out of the rain. Don't know where they go, but the only damp bit I've ever seen on Merlin and Baby is their paws.

Tiffy doesn't need to stay dry, since her coat's so thick and long that the rain just runs down her coat and drips off her belly (which is fine until she comes in and sits on you- she can collect fallen leaves and slugs in her belly fur too!), and Arthur just hunkers down in the long wet grass and gets sodden. I do worry about his inability to learn sensible things, like how to not get run over, or how to keep dry and warm in the rain, but if he's not learned in his first 13 years I don't think he's going to learn now.