Gabe Experienced Every Pet Owner’s Worst Nightmare

My fiance and I are the proud owners of 5 cats. When I say my fiance and me...what I really mean is my fiance owns 5 cats, and I have additional roommates. I always joke with her that I don't really like them but I do love them. One of them got in big trouble with both parents yesterday.

This is Scotty aka Scotty Boy. He's the only boy cat we own and he decided yesterday would be a good day to give his mother a panic attack. We never really let any of our cats outside as most of them are too afraid to step out of the door. We only really have 1 cat we have to be mindful of when we're walking in and out of the house as the other 4 have never even tried to get out. Scotty decided yesterday was the day to do some exploring.

When you walk into our house, Scotty is normally one to greet you at the door. He's mostly just curious about what's going on as opposed to wanting to say hi but it's always nice having someone to welcome you at the door. When I got home at about 1:30 in the afternoon yesterday, he wasn't at the door.

No big deal I thought, he's probably just sleeping somewhere. By about 2:30 I still hadn't seen him anywhere in the house so I decided to look for him, just to make sure he was in the house. After 45 minutes and looking in all of the regular hiding spots, no Scotty. I texted my fiance asking her if she knew where Scotty might be as I couldn't find him. She assumed he was just hiding in a spot I hadn't checked and said she would look for him when she got home.

At 4:40 when Kori got home, she gave the house a search and couldn't find him either. That's when the panic started to set in. It didn't make sense to either of us where he could be. He doesn't ever leave the house, so why would he be outside? He almost always greets people at the door so when he didn't come to the door when either of us got home, we figured something must be up. Him being in the house didn't seem likely to either of us and him being outside the house seemed impossible.

We grabbed a bag of cat food, put on our coats, and started walking around our yard, but no Scotty. We walked up and down the alleyway behind our house, but no Scotty. Kori then decided to post something on our neighborhood Ring Cam app and just asked if people saw him could they let us know.

After sitting around the house for another hour not saying much as we were hoping to hear him meow, I decided to give it another try, and see if I could track him down. Thankfully I went back out and looked. Scotty has a pretty distinct meow. It doesn't sound weird or anything but it doesn't sound like any other cat meow that I've ever heard. I heard him whining pretty close to the side door we always use and knew it was him instantly.

The little stinker somehow got out and ended up underneath my neighbor's front porch. The only problem is the porch is closed off. You can't see underneath it and you can't just crawl below it. I knocked on the door and thankfully the man who lives next door answered. I explained that I'm pretty sure I have a lost cat under his porch and he immediately showed me how to take off the side cover. What do I see underneath? Scotty boy laying in the mud.

Thankfully, he was fine, and he only appeared to be a bit frightened. I grabbed him and brought him back into the house. In the process, he happened to claw me pretty good on my right hand but I was just glad he was back.

Kori said she was going through a combination of emotions. She was obviously glad we found him but was pretty pissed off at him for putting her through that.

We believe he got out sometime early in the morning when Kori was holding the door for me as we walked outside together. We were both pretty tired and think we just missed him sneaking out. That means he would've been outside for about 15 hours. That's 14 hours and 59 minutes longer than he's ever spent outside.

It still seems strange to us as once again, Scotty never goes outside. We've always been able to hold the door open in front of him and he's never tried to leave. I guess yesterday was the day for him to explore. A safe Scotty and a happy fiance means I'm going to put a checkmark in the W column for me yesterday.