They are family and we love them. We have two. Heidi has been with us for 11 years - before we got married. She turned up in our garage giving birth to Hefner - my baby and animal soul mate who blessed us with his presence for eight years before we lost him to cancer. Harry has been with us for two years. We rescued him to ease the pain of losing Heffie. Bottom line, they are both our babies and we can't bear to lose either of them.
However, Heidi presents unique challenges. She is fiercely independent. Perhaps defiant. Definitely clever. I fuss at Mark about keeping the RV door closed. "She's not even making a move toward the door."
"Not now. But she will." And she does. At least once per trip. She escapes the confines of the RV to go outside exploring. So does Harry. The primary difference is that when you tell Harry to go back inside, he goes. Try telling it to Heidi. She doesn't care what you say. I don't know what her life was like before she turned up in our garage hissing at us - but I'm pretty sure it didn't involve much interaction with people. And if it did, I suspect the people may not have been nice to her.
Past aside. I'm pretty good at keeping an eye on them. I make sure that I'm aware of where they are and that the door is secure. Sometimes they take advantage of me being a bit slow and faltering while carrying stuff on the stairs. They get out. Harry goes back in. Heidi tries my patience. I've worried that she'll get us thrown out of a campground because she's been outside whining all night.
But not this last time. We didn't even know they'd gone out. I went to sleep sometime around 11:30 PM and everyone was inside. Mark woke up sometime around 3:00 AM and both Heidi and Harry had gone outside. We can't even imagine how they got the door open. We suspect that it may have been jarred out of place by some horrible road conditions and that while we thought it was closed, it actually wasn't. We really don't know. We only know that at 3:00 AM in North Little Rock, Arkansas - Heidi and Harry were outside the camper. The difference between the two was that Harry was sitting outside the door and came back in when told to and Heidi was nowhere to be found.
Mark got me up at 3:00 AM and we started our search for Heidi. Always in the past when we called to her, she would answer. Not this time. And since we hadn't seen her go, we had no idea where to look for her. While we couldn't call too loudly at 3:00 AM, we called softly and kept vigil inside and out waiting for her to return. We'd wanted to leave around 8:00 AM. That didn't happen. We continued to search for her until we were forced to leave.
Let me tell you, it broke our hearts to leave her. Even little Harry was devastated. I wavered between heartbreak and anger. I just knew that she was hiding and watching and refusing to come out for reasons known only to Heidi. She is not a reasonable cat.
In the end, we headed for home without her. We were both concerned. But we needed to get a payroll out and the direct debit hadn't been set up yet. In addition, we both had doctor and dentists appointments that needed to be tended to. We printed out a poster offering a monetary reward for her safe return and hoped for the best because we both knew that we could stay there waiting for three weeks or more and she may or may not have turned up.
Her picture flooded social media. PawBoost sent her info to about 65 shelters and vets in the immediate area. I called our vet to get her chip number so that could be added to the alert. My daughter-in-law took charge of the media effort and really helped get the word out that Heidi was missing.
I called the campground every day to see if anyone had spotted her. The answer was always the same. No. Until Wednesday morning. When I called on Wednesday morning to say that we were on our way back and we wanted site B1, the same spot we'd been in on Friday, I was told that she'd been seen the night before.
I was always optimistic that we'd get her back. But I was elated at that news. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when we arrived and she didn't come flying into my arms. We both called to her as we set up camp. We were prepared to stay for a month, if need be to find her and bring her home.
My faith and optimism were rewarded! After a few hours of being at the campsite, we heard her. She was hungry and while she was playing hard to get, it wasn't that hard to get her. She wanted the food that I was offering but she wanted the cuddles Mark always gives her. I think he grabbed the scruff of her neck on her third pass by his legs.
We had our baby back. The following day we took her to a local vet to make sure she didn't need extra help rehydrating. She didn't. While she'd lost a couple of pounds, they did seem surprised when we said she was 11. Apparently she looks pretty good for her age! (I like to think she takes after me....)
We hung out there in Little Rock for another day just because we didn't want to get there, turn around and drive back home.
We are all back home now. Mark and I are happy to have her home. Harry is back to being himself - he missed her terribly. And most of all, Heidi seems happy to be home. We know we were extremely fortunate to get her back unharmed.
Phew!
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