Sad news. My cat Coco is missing. She loves to go outside so we installed a pet door for her. Everything was going great up until 3 days ago where she didn't come home in the morning like she usually does.
I really wish I had sprung for a cat gps tracker. I was afraid something like this would happen one day.
I know your pain. This month marks a year since our cat, Ebeneezer, got catnapped, and we never found out who took him. We only knew this because our neighbor's cameras happened to come on when she got out of her car and it captured the moment some hamplanet waddled over, scooped him up, and tossed him into the trunk/back seat of her car. (Eb was a fat, docile cat, of course some fat woman would be able to pick him up no problem.) Thing was, we got this information about a few days after we realized he was missing, and Mom called/contacted all the shelters she could think of in the area about him, and none got back to her, suggesting he wasn't dropped off anywhere.
She has a feeling based on witness description that it may have been the same people who previously lived on our street before they moved away during the recession, in which a starving Eb showed up on our doorstep not long afterward. From stories of our neighbor who currently lives in that same house, when he first moved in (after a second family had moved out), he was surprised to see this tuxedo cat on his doorstep, and when he opened the door to give him food, Eb just waltzed right in like he owned the place and took a nap. Yeah, Eb was pretty friendly that other people knew him, but he only had two known houses he would frequent inside, ours and the one neighbor's.
We still hope he's okay even as we've resigned to the fact he's not going to come back home, but it's still super shitty that it happened. Even more-so if it
is the original owner who literally abandoned him over ten years ago. Mom isn't holding a grudge toward them for it, and I'm still struggling to stop being mad at them for it. This is possibly due to some guilt as days earlier, I had just taken him to the vet for some puncture wound of sorts (he tended to get into fights every summer) and I had detoured for fast food and didn't realize he had wet himself then until I let him out--and yes, I still wish I had asked to get him chipped while there as it was something that was on our minds from time to time but never got the chance to take him in for. We wanted to keep him inside for treatment, but he just liked the outdoors too much to stay in against his will. Unless he got taken to some far-off neighborhood, if he had wanted to come home, he would've been back by now as he was a pretty street-smart cat.
Hopefully I didn't bum you out further. It's always sad when a beloved pet cat goes missing, especially if they weren't old or sick when they do. Nature is cruel, and people are crueler, so best case scenario your kitty's okay somewhere out there. But as the days go by, and then months go by, you start to accept the loss and just pray the cat's in good hands, either with some kind lady or with God.