Feline Fugitive

 

The Great Escape, Minyoung Kim. 2023

I take my cats outside one at a time for 4 to 5 minutes per day for a supervised walk. Sometimes they run off. The worst offender is Shadow, my four year old tomcat. He is adept at opening doors and latches and jumping and climbing the standard wooden privacy fences in my neighborhood. Occasionally I'm unable to catch him and have to wait for him to come back. It worries me because local social media is an unending series of missing pet posts. Unfortunately last summer he had a hostile encounter with another cat. I didn't find any wounds but I'm afraid he could contract a disease with all the running amok.

I took him to the vet yesterday. It's the first time he's been in a cat carrier since I brought him home from the shelter in 2019. They found nothing wrong but he made terrible yowling sounds during the car trip the likes of which I've rarely heard from a cat.

I also took the other two cats. Old Zelda was due for her annual (she has a prescription that requires it) and the younger two haven't had veterinary care since they were kittens. It was quite a circus. We have to go back next January. The two younger cats were vaccinated and the middle cat Ada had a particularly bad time with the side effects.

It was kind of an amusing adventure but I'm not sure I'm looking forward to next year, and don't ask how much it cost.