Tiny’s Big Adventure

The Henderson Cat Colony fundraiser has ended, so I am not even sure if posts still reach many, but I keep posting followups here to emphasize that the work of clearing the Henderson Cat Colony is not yet over.

It has been — and continues to be — a MASSIVE $$, time and energy undertaking and continues with surprises, upsets, plot twists, and more. I guess all of that is to be expected when 55+ cats and kittens are involved. 🙂 (plus 14 more resident cats)

Three days ago Tiny decided to escape from the six kitten enclosure shared with fellow colony mates (and Goodie) and disappeared into the house… somewhere.

Understand, that we have water fountains, food stations, Litter Robots and litter boxes throughout the house in every room, so there was no real danger of starvation, etc. — EXCEPT in Mom's mind. 🙂

Two full searches of the house over two days failed to locate Tiny. However, twice in the middle of each night, I was awakened by Tiny's unique woeful meow originating from… somewhere.

Finally, in desperation, we called in an expert search and rescue team to help us go through the house with a fine-tooth comb. My daughter Joni and her husband Gregg came over and grabbed flashlights and we began turning over and moving everything in the house searching every itty-bitty space that a kitten might hide in. We were like detectives clearing a crime scene room by room. NOTHING was left unturned.

When we were in the last possible room, we heard Greg sort of whisper/shout that he thought he had found the escapee and did not want to frighten it. WAY TO GO GREG!!!

After running the suspect through facial recognition it was definitely confirmed to be Tiny. Of course hidden way behind a dresser, a storage unit, and a pile of boxes.

For the next 45 minutes, we devised plan after failed plan to acquire the suspect who continued to elude us at every turn until Joni diverted Tiny into a bathroom and closed the door. Finally, we had a reasonable chance of capturing and reuniting Tiny with fellow colony mates. And we did so thanks to Joni and Greg!

Mom was so relieved that she could once again feed TIny as much as she wanted and that she could quit worrying about Tiny starving or succumbing to all manner of other possible demises that she had cooked up in her imagination. 🙂

I will not bore you with me complaining how I HATE to stress a cat or kitten when needing to cage them or give meds, etc., but I HATE IT!

Also, I am not a fan of getting bit — which I did… again. A full mouth bite on the soft underarm resulted in four (4) kitten teeth punctures. Poor Tiny was so scared I figured I would never be able to even reach close to him/her again.

However, the next day when I stopped by the cage to say, “Hello,” Tiny came over and smelled my fingers with no more trepidation than before our “incident.”

I felt a bit better.

Black cats are the absolute best. 🙂