My 19 Year Old Cat 'ran Away' Two Doors Down. Turns Out There's More To The Story Than I Thought.

EveAndHerThieves

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Clyde is my 19 year old cat. I adopted him from a neighbor who could no longer care for him after the death of his wife. (It was her cat, she had cancer) He came to me with a UTI, bladder infection, a serious heart murmur, kidney stones, kidney failure, no muscle tone, a horrible limp, and ALWAYS has a snotty nose. In short, he can't go very far. He doesn't even go downstairs to pee. I've taken six months to pour $4K into medical (Including a tooth removal) and he's now doing better. He's VERY spoiled, since he can't really walk. With intense rehab be can now walk across the room with only two stops to wheeze (nose issues.) We mostly carry him around, and he gets checked on about 15 times a day.

This is important to know, because it means he does NOT go far. I often let him out on my porch for hours at a time so he can soak up the warmth from the sun (He's always cold.) Wolfie, my younger male, has taken up the role of babysitter. If Clyde is outside, Wolfie is nearby... Somewhere.

Since he spends a lot of time outside, it's not uncommon for us to get distracted and forget to check on him for an hour or so. It's fine, he has food and water, shade and never leaves the porch. Until...

On the 4th I went to check on him around 9pm. He wasn't there. The garage door was open, so I checked inside the house even though that's VERY unlikely. He only sits in four exact spots, never changing. Nope. Nope. Nothing. I was beginning to panic a little, thinking he'd run off to die. He wasn't in the back yard, or the front yard. He wasn't coming to the sound of his food - which he ALWAYS does. This was NOT good.

Finally, after about 20 minutes, I see Wolfie come running across the road. He kept glancing around, and walking in the middle of the road like he was unsure he should come home. It hit me that maybe he was with Clyde, so I went to check it out. I checked under the pine tree, the bushes, nothing. I kept calling his name, and finally I spotted him across the street under a lamp post. Three houses away. With his limp/snuffly nose it would have taken him 20 minutes to get that far. Thank heavens Wolfie saw him, or I never would have found him.

He's on a special diet due to his kidneys. Two days earlier he'd run out of solid foods, and was on his canned food. I figured it was a temper tantrum since he's a grumpy old man. His food arrived in the mail the next day, and all was well.

Or so I thought.

My neighbor just came over today. I came outside in the middle of the conversation, where she was talking about one of my cats getting into her house. The way she was talking sounded like Wolfie. She had a super dark photo on her phone, which did NOT look like Wolfie. I couldn't make out the coloring, though. She also had a video, luckily.

It was Clyde. Walking through her garage, getting REALLY mad that her toy poodles were barking at him and jumping on him. He was meowing at them to go away. I was horrified - this neighbor happens to be my landlord, and doesn't *exactly* know how many cats I have. Also, a cat inviting himself in is rude.

She explained that about 7pm she came home and left her garage door open to do some yard work. She also had the back garage door open to get to the trash cans. Apparently Clyde came stomping over, stomped through her garage and went outback. While he chewed out her dogs for barking. After stomping out back he stomped to her pet door - that he's NEVER seen before, I can only guess he assumed one would be there because I have one - he then shoved himself THROUGH the pet door. Keep in mind, he's 15 pounds, and this door is made for an 8 pound dog. Once inside her house he made a beeline for the dog food that happened to be out.

That's right. He broke into her house for dog food.

She picked him up and sat him back outback before realizing he CANNOT jump. At all. And the only way to my house is over a fence. So she took the fat cat through her garage and set him out front. Nope. He dud a U-turn and went back into her garage, heading for the food. She ended up closing her garage door, both of them, taking him through her house, and setting him on her porch. She then had to hurry to close the door behind him. She was trapped inside, he was trapped out. He then spent the next thirty or so minutes sniffing around trying to get back in. Until I found him.

This cat has NEVER done more than sneak downstairs for the 'junk food' my other cats eat. He was NOT hungry, I was feeding him properly. But the stinky snot decided to 'run away' and find food. I've no idea how he decided she had food, or how he managed to get through her pet door. Her poor dogs were upset for two days about his smell. (Note: He's never lived with dogs. Ever)

To have him shove his way into my landlord's house TWICE, harass her dogs, and eat her dog food made me turn bright pink. Then we all burst out laughing. The video WAS pretty funny. I'm lucky she's so calm about my hoard of cats.

Clyde, on the other hand, will never be out of his food again. I didn't know cats could throw temper tantrums that epic. I laugh every time I think about it, and HAD to share. On a good day he moves maybe 20 feet every six hours. So his mini adventure was very impressive.

I now love this cat even more. He's gone from "I'm sick, take care of me." to a proper grumpy old man who runs away. I'm just glad he didn't take Wolfie with him.

Anyway, I just had to share my story of my amazing cat. He's a big pile of blubber, and apparently has an attitude worse than I thought. I've no idea if I'm going to be mad at him, or laugh myself silly.
 
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EveAndHerThieves

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I keep a memory book of him, since he's such a special cat. The memory book contains things like his second checkup and the murmur was GONE, the first day he was able to walk up the stairs himself, the day I got his ultrasound scans back and he was NOT cancer, etc. It also has things like the day he kept me from ending up in the ER due to a panic attack, him sitting on me overnight when I had the flu, him sitting in the kitchen meowing for food at 7 sharp at night. In the middle of all of these dramatic and tear jerker memories we now have the story of how he ran away to the neighbor's house. He's never going to live it down. We've been teasing him all day. We had to take him out to say hi to the neighbor. He must remember her, because he stuck his ears down and made grumpy sounds. :p

You can see the guilty fat man here. Wolfie is the one above snoozing. Wolfie seems to think if he's not so close to Clyde that they're one being that he's babysitting wrong. (Seriously. Wolfie sleeps ON Clyde. Or with his nose up Clyde's butt, happily getting hit in the face by Clyde's tail.) Clyde finally sneezed on him to make him move back that far. Wolfie also thinks if he comes streaking at you at the speed of sound going "HEISOVERTHATWAYSOMEWHEREOKAY?!?!?" that you'll know where Clyde is. Wolfie is weird. We love Wolfie. And Clyde.
 
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EveAndHerThieves

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Hey that's great a cat in kidney failure wants to eat!! He sounds like he is doing relatively ok despite everything. Give him more canned food! And don't you dare run out again :p hahaha
Clyde is STUBBORN! He has about 15 kidney stones across both kidneys, bladder stones, and often pees blood due to his stones. Which is why the special old man food. He can only eat a specific amount a day because he's also fat. He waits at my sister's door for an hour every morning until she gets up and feeds him. He meows at night at 7pm sharp for food. 3pm he is in for a snack. If the dish isn't full RIGHT THEN he gets seriously mad. Like, he positions himself in the highest traffic area in the house and refuses to move. He HUGE, so you can't nudge him with your toe. He won't move until you feed him. This also blocks the cats wherever they are.
If his dish is empty and nobody is around to feed him, he'll go down the 13 VERY STEEP stairs o the other cat's food. He CANNOT have it. My other cats now have their dish on a piano bench since Clyde can't jump that high. He doesn't mind, he just sniffs around the base for spilled food. Then he gets stuck downstairs because the stairs are too much to take. His world revolves around food.

This morning he was sneaky and shoved Rue off my bed. I wake up with Rue plastered against my legs, so I pet her to make her move. She always does after a minute. I dozed off, still petting her, and then realized she hadn't moved for 15 minutes.... I look down and it's Clyde. On her blanket. Getting his face pet. Looking drunk. I'm now worried it's going to become a 'thing' with him since he's found a new way to get pet.




Thanks for sharing.

Ive obviously never met wolfie or clyde...but I like them both.
Wolfie is, uhh... Not smart. We adopted him when he was WAY too young to leave mama. We were his 5th him in 12 hours, so we kept him. He WAS going to go with my brother, until we found out Wolfie is the most wonderful cat ever.

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There's never a dull moment when Wolfie is around.
 

Mamanyt1953

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~mutters to self~ I really need to visit the little girl's room before reading threads like this!

Wolfie is, uhh... Not smart
He's smart enough to come get the cavalry when Clyde goes walkabout!

I love this. I do hope it will be a continuing saga, with BOTH of these remarkably funny cats! I needed to laugh till I cried today.
 
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EveAndHerThieves

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I love this. I do hope it will be a continuing saga, with BOTH of these remarkably funny cats! I needed to laugh till I cried today.
I'm glad to make you laugh! Clyde is a very, very smart kitty when he wants to be. He's also taken up singing (Which is WEIRD) he was out in the middle of the yard today singing for no reason at all. When I went to check on him he happily trotted up to me like a kitten. I've no idea what he's on about, but he's sweet. I lightly scolded him for leaving the porch again. He's stayed put ever since. I swear he understands me. He also has no shame sitting on other cat's heads until they move so he gets what he wants. Or he sneezes on them. He's an old, fat, crippled, toothless and declawed (I didn't do it) cat, who bullies my other cats around. We love him so much.

Out of all the adventures Wolf and Clyde have taken, this is by far my favorite. I'm telling everyone who will listen. I mean, come on, how often does a cat run away to eat your neighbor's dog food?

He's smart enough to come get the cavalry when Clyde goes walkabout!
Wolfie is VERY smart when he wants to be! He's just clueless. When he was a kitten he was OBSESSED with climbing a cat tree. He was too small. He tried for several hours each day until he got it. Then promptly fell off, hitting the wall on the way down. Didn't even phase him.
He smacks his head into everything. The walls. The piano. The closed sliding door he saw two seconds ago (?!) walls so he can stop and spin around quicker on the tile floor. (It looks painful. I padded the wall finally. I've no idea why he's decided to use walls to stop)
He falls out of trees, falls off the trampoline. Whenever the garage door opens he goes screaming at it trying to get hit by the opening door. When we play with a fishing pole and a mouse on the end he will jump five feet in the air, land on his back/head, and not even notice.
Honestly I've no idea how he hasn't broken a bone yet. He went after a bee and got the base of his tail stung. (We thought it was broken, but that's another story) Despite the massive "DO NOT TOUCH OWWWWWWWW" he had, he kept trying to kill the bees. My sister butt dialed 911 by accident. When the officer showed up I opened the door to Wolfie halfway up his leg demanding pets. He's just that kind of cat.

In case you're worried, he's been checked out for brain issues. He's fine. We also check him every time he SMACKS into something to be sure he's okay. He's a hardly thing, and doesn't seem to mind rough play. The only thing he dislikes is when Socks - who trained him to be her own personal cat, which is why we think he now thinks he's Clyde's pet - gets done playing with him and chomps him. I guess he's like a little boy, very durable. And he enjoys life to the fullest, nevermind the splats.
 

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Margret

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Wow! I've had an elderly dog who went after cat food (according to his vet it was because his sense of smell was deteriorating with age so he wanted something stinkier to eat), but I've never heard of a cat going after dog food before.

Margret
 
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