I have not been active at this site for some time ... and after submitting this post, I doubt if I will be active again.
For those of you who remember my posts about Bobby Cat and Friends, it grieves me to tell you that Bob died early on the morning of October 31st. He was 17 years old. Princess Tabitha (aged 7) is missing and presumed dead. Both cats are pictured above. Bob was the orange Manx and Tabitha was a tuxedo kitty.
After getting ready for work, only Buki and Scraps were in the living room for their breakfast. Bob and Tabitha were nowhere to be found. I pushed open the flap of the pet door and softly called for my cats (so as not to wake the neighbors). When neither of them responded, I went into the back yard and was horrified to find that a coyote had torn Bob into pieces. All that was left of Bob was his head, chest, and front legs lying in a pool of congealing blood. The rest of him was missing.
I remember Bob giving his customary call for an early morning breakfast at 3 AM ... so sometime between 3 AM and when I discovered his body at 6 AM, Bob died ... and Tabitha went missing.
I retained the presence of mind to arrange for a substitute. I wrapped Bob's mangled body in a bath towel. After the sun came up, I searched the yard and found one of Bob's back paws.
I also found a second pool of blood by the back wall. I think that this is where Tabitha died. No remnant of her body has been found and based upon the blood, I think was killed and her body was carried away.
The location of the blood trails suggest to me that Bob may have tried rescuing Tabitha. Sadly my 17 year old ten pound Manx had no chance against a 45 lb. coyote.
Although I live in a rural area of Arizona, I live in the middle of a subdivision. I also live in a gated community that is surrounded by a 6 foot wall. Each home within this community is also surrounded by a 6 foot wall. It never occurred to me that this neighborhood might not be safe ... but as I later found out via the internet, coyotes can go over walls as high as 8 feet. They stand on their hind legs, bracing their front paws against a wall and use their powerful hind legs to leap. If their front paws can get over the top edge of a wall, they can literally haul themselves up and over any fence or wall that's less than 8 feet in height.
I was sorry to learn this lesson the hard way.
The pet door has been taken down. Neither Buki (black cat pictured below left) or Scraps (below right) seem to mind. Buki who was adopted from a local shelter over this past summer, was never an outdoor kitty to begin with. Although he watched the other cats coming and going with great interest, he never once expressed any intention of going out himself.
Given the fact that he spent most of the first 6 and a half years of his life in a community kennel at a no-kill shelter, I think he thinks that life in my home is just about perfect and he has no interest in leaving. Scraps who was literally abandoned as a kitten on the sidewalk in front of my home in Pennsylvania on a cold autumn day has also never expressed much interest in going outside.
Princess Tabitha was my adventure kitty. Not only did she enjoy visiting the backyard but she also liked going over the wall and patrolling the neighborhood. Bob was not an explorer but he liked getting some fresh air and sunning himself on the back porch.
Words cannot properly express how badly I feel over the loss of my two cats.
I know that in time, the raw pain I feel (and the guilt I am suffering from having installed a pet door) will diminish .. but for now my heart is empty and I dearly miss my two friends.
I am sharing this post because you are the only people who knew how much my cats meant to me. A therapist also suggested that writing this post might be conducive at finding some sort of closure from what has happened.
I will not be returning to this site.
David
