If your cat gets out once, the odds that she’ll return are excellent. The outdoors is dangerous to cats, and most feral cats only live a few years, but that still makes the odds of surviving for one day pretty decent.
Your cat won’t have the survival skills of a feral cat, so everything out there will be a bit more dangerous to her, but as long as she has lived in your house long enough to recognize it as her home, she will come back once she’s had enough of her adventure. Other cats and animals are a threat, but so are cars, so hopefully you don’t live right by a major highway. I won’t pretend that it isn’t dangerous for a cat to be outside alone, but I would be optimistic that she’ll return relatively unharmed – though I wouldn’t let it happen again.
Hopefully your cat is vaccinated and has all her claws intact (declawing is inhumane mutilation and should be punishable by death!), and if she (or he) is fixed the likelihood that she’ll avoid confrontation with other cats is greater. She will also be less motivated to roam and stray too far away from your house, and you might even have her back before her next scheduled feeding. An intact male cat, for example, would be another story, as he could feel compelled to challenge and fight other males, and track down any females in heat. Cats are not gentle lovers, and unfortunately there are communicable diseases that they can contract via sexual contact (and fights), so please take your fur baby in for a checkup when she returns.
Last Sunday I suddenly came face to face with a stranger in my backyard. She had been tracking her escaped cat, Morty, through the woods between our homes and she had even managed to climb around the fence that extends all the way down the bank of the river behind my house. I was very startled to see this unknown woman in rubber boots and a fuzzy robe, with twigs in her hair and a wild look on her face, especially since we have that physical fence surrounding the entire property except on the river side, but she explained that she had been following Morty. Morty and her had recently moved back in with her parents, my neighbors, and he’d gotten out the day before through a window. He wasn’t neutered yet though he was sexually mature, and he hadn’t been in the house quite long enough to fully recognize it as home, so he hadn’t come back on his own.
My new friend told me that she’d heard him that morning trying to mate with a feral cat, and that he’d run away when she approached. A few minutes later I started to hear a male voice repeatedly screaming “Morty!” on the other side of the fence. That was Morty’s grandpa, and his angry shouting was presumably the reason why the cat had kept running from them. I told her she was welcome to keep hunting, but then her dad shouted that he’d spotted the cat back out in the woods, so she grabbed the edge of the fence and swung herself around it. I kept reading my book as I listened to their shouts, but then I saw a terrified looking black cat standing in the door to my greenhouse. When he ducked inside I snuck over and closed the door behind him, and I called across the fence that I thought I could get the cat if they stayed quiet for a minute.
I had him trapped, but there was an open glass panel in the sloped roof-wall that I couldn’t reach to close, and I was worried he’d find his way out that way. I spoke softly to him for a while, and when Morty cornered himself behind the cucumbers, I scruffed him. There’s something about taking a good firm grip on a cat’s scruff that usually subdues them – perhaps it wakes them back to their childhood – and it worked with Morty. His tail automatically popped out between his back legs, just like a kitten keeping it off the ground as she’s being transported by Mom, and he allowed me to carry him. His mom hadn’t brought his carrier, and I was fairly certain he’d go buck wild if I loosened my grip, so I held him close as I walked him to my car. Once he was inside I called out to his people, and I got my keys and told them I’d drive him home. They met me in their driveway with his carrier, but after they’d chased him all morning he was afraid of them, so I had to catch him again inside the car and stick him in the box.
Morty is okay, though he sprayed the hell out of my jacket and my car, but I hope anyone with a missing cat will learn from his experience. Cats do not like being chased, and they hate being yelled at, so unless that cat is already physically trapped somewhere, you’d do better to sit down and talk to him – possibly with a can of tuna nearby. Morty’s mom asked for a vet recommendation, and she had him fixed yesterday, so hopefully he won’t be so desperate for adventures in the future. His mom very kindly wrote me a check for dry cleaning and detailing, so all is well here. I hope it works out for you too, and if it only happens once, odds are it will be okay.
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