Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Fret ‘n’ Fright ‘n’ Worried with a Happy Ending

bingo_6 months 5
Look at that face! You’d think butter wouldn’t melt, but you would be deceived.

We’re just recovering from a terribly fretful day, when Bingo went missing for 26 hours – a night and a day.

On Sunday night around 7.30pm Bingo vanished and stayed vanished for the aforementioned length of time.

We searched and called for hours to no avail on Sunday night, and the next morning panicked and desolated with his non appearance, proceeded to take further steps in the effort to find him.

I created a Lost Cat flyer and printed out 40 copies to be letterboxed in the area. I registered Bingo at Lost Pet Finders and also joined a Facebook Group, Lost Cats Melbourne.

Oracles were consulted with mixed results, though I was pleased to get Preponderance of Great at my last I Ching reading which promised supreme good fortune.

Last night we extended the boundaries of our search and walked all the streets within the area where we reside which has  a creek on one corner and two main roads at the other end.

I must admit I had resigned myself to never seeing young Bingo again, my mind in turmoil at his loss, where every contingency had been covered without success.

We had both retired to bed to read when our perturbation turned to relief and joy at around 9.20pm, hearing Bingo chirping as he came up the hall from the back of the house.

None the worse for his adventure, other than very hungry, he was jumpy and nervous at first, though as pleased to see us as we were to see him.

This morning he was quite subdued, for him, but as the day progressed he was back to his rascally self and even enboldened by whatever he had undergone.

Whether it was the letterboxing, or the long walk and calling around the neighbourhood, that brought him home, we’ll never know. Nor do we have a clue as to his whereabouts during those trying 26 hours.

One forgets that there always comes a time in a young cat’s life where they go missing overnight and you think the worst has befallen them. It is always with immeasurable relief that they find their way home, and -more to the point - know where home is.

As we have not as yet put a collar and tag on him, we hope to address this shortly. I was pleased to discover that you can buy a tracking tag, which you can attach to the collar and trace through radio waves via a handheld device – a sort of  geiger counter for cats, so I’ve ordered one from Tab Cat. It should arrive in a week or so. I’ll report on its effectiveness when it is activated.

With the Bingo trauma now over, we had to go to a funeral today for our long time next door neighbour who died of lung cancer on 5 June. He was a gentle soul and a very good neighbour, who loved our cats. He’ll be missed by all who knew him.

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