Transcript
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Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet.
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So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and whether your cat is a Houdini who's always trying to, and maybe succeeding in, escaping outdoors, or simply one of those ones like mine that are great at hiding anytime the carrier comes out and we're getting ready to go to the vet, you've probably experienced that panic when you're just not able to find your cat, no matter how much you feel like.
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You've looked around and, sadly, every year in the United States more than 10 million pets are lost and unfortunately, only about 65% of them are ever found.
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And I think when it comes to cats in particular, the odds of them being found are probably significantly lower than dogs.
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So my guest today is here to share how she helps people beat those odds and get their beloved cats back home.
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As a professional lost cat finder, kim Freeman has 10 years of experience finding cats with the scars on her knees to prove it, combining missing persons profiling with tracking, bird language and the science of lost cat behavior.
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She's been deemed the world expert in lost cat recovery and this was so surprising to me Solving cases in 48 states and 23 countries, which is just amazing to me.
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Her mission is getting cats found before they end up in shelters, and she's even created resources for pet parents, which we're going to talk about in more detail as we get into the show, where she shares her scientific methods to improve owner success and reduce shelter intake.
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So, kim, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
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You bet.
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Thank you for the intro.
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Yeah, so I know.
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I first heard about you when I attended a conference called Texas Unites for Animals, and I was just fascinated by the fact that, number one there was such a thing as a cat detective.
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How did you get started being a cat detective?
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Well, my cat went missing and I learned firsthand what it feels like and the panic you feel, the stress and the stupid advice you get.
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At the time I was just taking any and all advice I could.
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Luckily I was able to get him found and that kind of inspired me to teach others what actually works instead of what doesn't work.
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Henry's my.
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He was my motivation for doing this professionally, yep.
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Yeah, sometimes it starts off like that and you're like, hey, this worked well for me and I learned from this experience.
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What can I do to share that with other people?
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And it's funny you say about the bad advice you got, because as a rescue person, I spend a lot of time trolling social media looking for animals that we can help and almost every single day I come across at least a couple of posts related to people losing their pets and then people commenting giving lots of advice for finding them.
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That, I'm pretty sure, may not be the best advice and it's kind of sad that people are looking to just some random person in their neighborhood who really doesn't know what they're doing.
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But what are some of the mistakes that people make when they're trying to find a lost cat?
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Well, the first thing is people panic, and that's obvious, right, that's understandable, but it's so important to stay calm and think about what you're doing instead of just trying to scramble around doing everything.
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The big mistakes I see are people following these internet myths and memes.
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The worst offender, in my opinion, is the litter box.
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I see that a lot.
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If your pets ever lost, put out the litter box and they can smell it from a mile away.
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There are so many problems with the litter box.
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First of all, this is to me the classic example of a superstition.
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It's circumstantial evidence that's believed because of the extenuating circumstances.
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So some cats have come home when there was a litter box outside the door, but it was in spite of the litter box, not because of it.
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So studies have shown a sack of potatoes would have worked just as well.
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But yeah, the litter box can be very counterproductive.
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Cats bury their poop for a reason they don't want to announce their presence to predators and all the other critters around.
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So when you put it out on display, you're inviting in all the neighborhood cats who think it's their territory and they're going to come and chase your cat away or beat him up because they think what are you doing in my territory.
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Or you're inviting in raccoons who will come eat the poop, as well as coyotes.
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They are real interested in cat poop, just like a dog eats the cat poop out of the litter box.
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Yeah coyotes will gladly do that.
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So it's really you're issuing an invitation for critters you don't want in your cat's safe zone.
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Yeah, definitely don't need to lure predators to the yard with the litter box.
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Exactly.
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So that's one big one.
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So no more putting the litter box outside.
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Right, you know I tell people home smells more like home than a litter box.
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The second one is food.
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You're doing the same thing with food.
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You're inviting in all the critters and stressed out.
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Cats are not that food motivated.
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They're more focused on safety.
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Food is not at the top of their list, so it's more important to give them a safe hiding spot, an open window, so the smell of home is drifting out.
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You need to think like a cat Instead of a freaked out human.
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You need to think like a cat.
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The same goes for walking around shaking treats.
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This is another mistake.
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I see so wandering the neighborhood far and wide streets and walks away.
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I've done it I admit.
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Well, I mean because that's what humans think of, right, and it's kind of a dog mentality search, Because sometimes a dog will come running if they hear your voice, but a cat is more likely if they even come out to following you from a distance.
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They could be like three yards behind you running from bush to under the car to bush and they're trailing you, but they're way behind and then within 10 minutes they're far from home and you're around the corner like the pied piper.
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You're just leading them all over the neighborhood, You're like leading your cat away.
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That's yeah, I never even thought about that.
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Right, that's exactly it.
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So the only time you should shake, treats and call is in your own yard, ideally at your door.
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You're trying to come, to come home to your door, not leave.
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Water is okay, you know.
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Water isn't going to cause a food fight.
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Water isn't going to cause your cat to get beat up, but cats.
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People need to understand that.
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Cats can go without food and water for days and even weeks.
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And putting food out because you're afraid they're going to starve is really biting your nose off despite your face.
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It's counterproductive because of the trouble it brings in.
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Mm-hmm.
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So yeah.
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One of the things that you had mentioned in our conversation is another thing that I was guilty of, because we actually adopted out a cat who was a very hard to place cat, a very, very shy cat, to.
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A longtime friend of mine Adopted her out, this cat.
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You know, she was really kind enough to take this cat in, go through all this trouble of trying to acclimate the cat, who took forever to come out from under the bed, all of that stuff as she was moving across country, of all things.
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The cat got out.
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I don't know how it got out, but it got out of the person's house that she was staying at like as a stopover point, and so, of course, she calls me in a panic.
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What should I do?
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And my first thing was to set a trap, and that might not have been the best advice from what we were talking about before.
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Yeah, traps are like the new litter box now.
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I see people who've never found a cat in their life giving out advice.
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And now the new, like litter box magic wand is set up traps.
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Set up traps.
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Sometimes that works, but again you're inviting critters in that aren't scared, aren't in panic mode, aren't hiding, they're like, oh food.
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And they waltz into the trap and they get stuck and then they're thrashing for their life, panicked, and your cat's watching that, all right.
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All right, all right, all right.
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Oh my god, that's scary.
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I'm not going near that thing, I'm not going anywhere near that thing.
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That's a good point, and of course, the advice for trying to trap anything is always put the stinkiest, put sardines or something that has a really strong smell.
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So now you're just amplifying the message to the neighborhood critters to come and check out your trap.
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So, definitely something I won't be telling people anymore.
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Now I feel bad.
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Luckily she did get the cat pack, but he kind of came back on his own, or maybe he wasn't very far in the first place, I forget what it was, but they did end up finding him.
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Is there a difference between an indoor cat getting out and an outdoor cat kind of disappearing?
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From the standpoint of mistakes that people might make in searching for one or the other, yes, absolutely Good question.
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There's a big difference.
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Usually, when an indoor cat gets out, they are scared and they're hiding.
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When an outdoor access cat disappears, he got curious and something happened.
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Okay, right, so scared, curious.
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Very different.
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So usually the scared cat is looking for the first dark, safe place to hide.
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A lot of people think they're going to hightail it to the woods Like it's an animal.
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It wants to go to the woods.
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No, indoor cats want to be under things.
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They want to not be seen.
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They want to be under dark, quiet areas, like under cars, under porches, under decks, under things, which, as a side note, is why GPS is not great for cat collars, because it doesn't pick.
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You know, satellite is from above and it doesn't pick them up.
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Yeah, if we talk about tracking collars, we can get into that, but the outdoor cat disappears.
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Something happened.
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He may have wandered into a garage and gotten stuck into a shed while someone was doing yard work.
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This is what happened to Mr Perr.
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This was my story.
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Okay, I lived on a horse farm.
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Mr Perr would follow me around while I did my horse chores and I thought, oh, he just got in a stall or something.
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But Mr Perr was stuck next door in a ranchers shipping container and it was summertime.
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He got locked in.
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Now curious cats are like I see something open they haven't been to before.
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Oh, I've been in here, let me check this out.
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They are busy.
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He's not supposed to get stuck.
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Yeah, and then the rancher closed the door because he's done with his project.
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He didn't know Mr Perr was in there sleeping.
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So that is an example of why it's so important.
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I mean, I could have alerted every soul on Facebook and he would not have been found.
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Yeah.
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I had to search, physically search and ask neighbors to access things that they did not want me to see or go to.
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But you got to search.
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Yeah, that's an excellent point because they, you know, I would assume I guess I shouldn't assume, but we have barn cats here at the rescue ranch and they're, you know, anywhere from borderline feral to pretty darn feral.
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You know they show up for food but won't come in, you know, within X number of feet from you.
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But they usually do show up for food and I know they do travel throughout the day but generally they're going to come back at night.
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So that's a good point.
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You know, if after a certain period of time they haven't come back like they pretty much normally did, that's probably something has happened.
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On the flip side of that, with the indoor cats, what I have, because I've also had people not that I am a cat finding expert by any stretch of the imagination, certainly not but I have found a few cats inside people's houses when they would have sworn that the cat was nowhere.
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They say I looked everywhere and the cat is nowhere.
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I know that's something you said to me the other day.
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Especially with the indoor cats, search the house first.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah Well, it doesn't hurt to put an alert on next door, just in case, but you've got to comb every cubic inch of the house, not just on the floor not just on the shelf but inside a blanket and up in the box springs of your bed, the false front subvernature.
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It looks like the bookcase goes to the floor, but from the back there's a hole underneath it.
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I heard about I was not involved in this, but I heard about a horror case of someone who found their cat six years after they saw it had gotten out.
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The skeleton was under one of those false front.
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That's not good.
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Hopefully we'll find them before that happens.
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But you also told me an interesting story the other day about a cat in a chest.
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Tell that story if you do.
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It's a sad story but in a way it's inspirational because it shows cats can survive.
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For I think it was like seven weeks, almost two months, in a blanket chest.
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Someone had opened up the chest to get a blanket out on a cold night.
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Kitty had jumped in I guess.
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In the morning they closed it without looking.
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Of course the people searched the woods.
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This was a cabin.
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They searched the woods, assumed the cat was killed by a coyote or a predator and gave up.
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Weeks and weeks later, I think, someone went to get a blanket out of that same chest and there was the kitty still alive.
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Oh wow, in a blanket chest there is zero water.
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There's no bugs.
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At least in a garage a cat can kill bugs and eat.
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She had gone blind.
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She was an organ failure.
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I don't think she made it Again.
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This was not one of my cases, it's just an example of how long cats can survive without food and water?
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Yeah, that's obviously super sad but, like you said, it does give you hope, to me on a couple of different levels.
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Number one, the fact that it lasted that long.
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If they had been lucky enough to have found the cat sooner, then cat might have made it.
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I think the key message with the whole thing is that you literally have to look everywhere, because I've seen too many people just in my little experience with adopting out a cat and a week later the person's calling you in a panic because the cat's gone and it got out when the contractors were here.
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Not to say that that doesn't happen, because it does happen, but a terrified cat that you just adopted a week ago that has not left the bedroom that you have them in and you haven't seen it.
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The odds of that making it all the way through your three-story house and out the back door when the contractors were coming in are slimmer than the odds and correct me if I'm wrong that the cat is still somewhere in the house.
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I think people they don't do what you're saying.
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They don't look in every like, open every chest because you don't know who's been in that.
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Maybe I'm not the one that took the blanket out, but my significant other did, or a kid did.
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We actually had a cat and I know you said it told me a similar story.
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We call it the cat closet cat towels that live in the cat closet, even though we have more than just cats at the rescue.
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We had a cat that we couldn't find and he had gotten in there and he was in there for hours and didn't make a sound.
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I guess he was sleeping in there, but nobody could recall really even going in there or how he could have.
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Possibly because it boggles your mind sometimes how could I possibly not have seen him get in there, as I literally opened the door, grab a towel, close it again.
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How did he get in there?
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They're fast.
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Yeah, and your eyes are at eye level and they're down on the floor.
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That's true, yeah, he probably just darted in on the bottom and then made his way up to one of the top shelves because there he was sitting, happy training, pooping on my towels because he'd been there for a while.
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But yeah, it's amazing.
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Never made a sound.
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No, never cried no.
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Well, not until I opened the door, and then he was like here he comes.
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We actually even had a deaf kitten that we lost and we figured he was.
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Kind of a similar situation to the false front is that he and we didn't even really know he was deaf until then because he was pretty little, but he had gone behind a china cabinet up into the drawer it's like the doors are shut, so you say to yourself, okay, there's no way he could be in those drawers, I won't open those doors.
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But I mean, I found cats in drawers and I found them under drawers because they've come in from the back, like you said.
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So please people, like Kim said, put the alert out to the neighborhood, but do thoroughly search your house before you assume that the cat has gotten out for sure.
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Yeah, Even if there's a contractor, the odds of the cat getting out versus went deeper into hiding are much stronger on the ladder.
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I just went deeper into hiding.
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A lot of people are like, well, he's not in his usual hiding place, that's because he was extra stressed with the saw going.
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Yeah, I went deeper.
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I learned about the drawers.
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My mother's cat goes behind her dresser and accesses the drawer from the back.
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And there was.
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I've had another case where somebody was in a hotel and when it was time to leave they couldn't find her cat.
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I assume the cat got out, but it was in the bathroom vanity in a drawer.
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So, actually once it was a hotel and once it was someone's apartment.
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Yeah, cats are just ninja hiders.
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They really are.
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Oh yeah, and it's funny you say hotel, because that just totally reminded me of a story I'd completely forgotten about when I was in college.
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Our dorm was actually an old hotel, so it had the old school radiator things with the AC and the heat, and it's a tiny little room.
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So I had this illegal cat in my dorm room and it disappeared.
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And so I searched the apartment you know the just tiny little room, seemingly everywhere there.
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I had to now go and confess to my, the RAs, the dorm boss, that I had this illegal cat because it's like, okay, they need to be on the lookout, that this cat is somewhere.
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And no sooner had I gone down to her room, knocked on her door, confessed to having the cat to keep a lookout.
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I came back in here, comes the cat out from behind the radiator.
00:19:13.579 --> 00:19:14.786
But I kind of glanced at it.
00:19:14.885 --> 00:19:18.971
It didn't look like a cat could possibly fit in there, but boy, they can squeeze into some spaces.
00:19:20.232 --> 00:19:22.755
Yep, yep, even under the dishwasher.
00:19:22.755 --> 00:19:23.395
Yeah.
00:19:23.395 --> 00:19:26.409
But the cat waited until you fast up yeah.
00:19:27.099 --> 00:19:30.049
And then I had to give him to another kid because I couldn't have it anymore.
00:19:30.049 --> 00:19:37.011
So another girl kept him until we graduated and then he just kind of lived in her room for the next couple of months.
00:19:37.011 --> 00:19:44.632
You know, another thing that I wanted to talk to you about too is that we get a lot of calls from people who their cat's gone missing.
00:19:44.632 --> 00:19:47.240
You know, indoor cat gets out, it's been gone for.
00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:53.229
I mean, sometimes they don't even wait a couple of days, but you know, usually it's somewhere around the week mark.
00:19:53.229 --> 00:19:57.320
It's like oh, you know, it's been a week, we've seen no sign of it, we can't find it anywhere.
00:19:57.320 --> 00:20:01.391
We've searched all over the neighborhood and now we're looking to get another cat.
00:20:01.391 --> 00:20:07.673
Is there a timeline for finding cats that you would have to that you would say, okay, I should give up.
00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:19.692
Or I mean, I would like to say never give up fully, but yeah, there's a saying on one of my loft cat groups of don't give up until you unless you find a body.
00:20:19.692 --> 00:20:22.352
But yeah, I've had cases two years.
00:20:22.352 --> 00:20:29.393
Oh wow, I don't think you should go get another cat, for at least I don't know six months.
00:20:29.393 --> 00:20:33.368
The thing is people think they've done everything when they haven't.
00:20:33.910 --> 00:20:34.131
Right.
00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:42.587
Almost every single person that gets my loft cat kit and even just skims it or watches the video says oh my God, I thought I had done everything.
00:20:42.587 --> 00:20:43.349
I had no idea.
00:20:43.349 --> 00:20:53.171
I wish I'd found you sooner, because you know, just like you said, people don't usually find me for a week or so after they've exhausted all the bad stuff, the free stuff.
00:20:53.171 --> 00:20:53.932
It doesn't work.
00:20:53.932 --> 00:21:00.490
And then someone tells them about me but yeah, I just can't see going and getting a replacement cat.
00:21:00.490 --> 00:21:15.609
It generally, I would say, conservative estimate two months is usually like if you've done everything and kept at it for two months and you don't have a single lead.
00:21:15.609 --> 00:21:23.404
Well, that means your cat probably was either dumped across town or accidentally got transported, so you still shouldn't give up.
00:21:23.404 --> 00:21:23.965
Right.
00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:27.164
But two months, I think, is a fair.
00:21:27.164 --> 00:21:32.430
If you're really doing all the things, Because you know there's eight angles, You've got to cover all eight.
