Good Boy Chronicles: Disappeared

First off, I want to reassure everyone:  Good Boy is fine. REPEAT:  GOOD BOY IS FINE.  But we've had a pretty harrowing couple of weeks, here.  I am going to break this into several posts over the next couple of days, because it's a loooooong story, so if you want to read it all at once, best wait until Monday or so. But now, we'll get started, and remember:  Good Boy is fine.

Let's see, where were we?  Good Boy had been adopted to a suitable family and was off to start his new life.

Except.

Turns out a clerical error was made by one of the rescue volunteers.  The application that was "approved" for Good Boy was actually supposed to be "denied", for several reasons.  I don't review applications, so I never saw it.  The error wasn't uncovered until, 9 days after he was adopted, a post about Good Boy appeared on the local "Lost and Found Pets" facebook page.

Good Boy was missing.

As soon as I found out, I contacted the adopter, whom I had not spoken with or met before.  She said that when they first took Good Boy home, he spent most of his time hiding in quiet places, which is to be expected seeing as he is a timid cat and this family had FIVE CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF TEN (one of the many, many reasons the box that was checked was SUPPOSED to be the "denied" box, not the "approved" box.  Good Boy was not supposed to go to a family with young children due to his fear of loud noises and sudden movements.)  After four days in the home, he disappeared.  They searched the house for five days before putting an ad in the lost and found.  Meaning that as of April 25, when the ad was posted, he had been adopted for nine days, and no one had seen the cat for the last five days.  He could be anywhere by now.

I asked her if anyone had actually SEEN Good Boy leave the house.  No, she said, but the kids were in and out constantly and so were several other people, so he could have gotten out.  Had he been hovering near a door, I asked.  No, she said, but they had "torn the house apart" and could not find him.

oh shit oh shit oh shit.

I felt terrible.  I had failed Good Boy.  I had trusted the rescue to find him a good home, and due to a snafu, he went to a BAD home.  I had LIED to him.  I had visited him at the center, week after week, and told him not to worry, the rescue would find him a good home.  And they DIDN'T.  Poor Good Boy!  I had to save him!

I went over to the neighborhood and started talking to the neighbors.  I advised the adopter to have some one-page "missing" flyers made up, and said that she could get a bunch of copies printed up for five bucks at Staples.  The following day, I took over feeding stations, food and water, and game cams and set them up in various backyards throughout the neighborhood.  The woman who runs the rescue was also out looking for him.  I gave the owner a 30 lb. bag of cat food and told her to monitor the stations daily, call me if food was going missing from the bowls, and refill the bowls as necessary.  I told her to call me if she ran out of cat food and I would bring her more.  (The family was, how do I put this?  Very low income.)  I told her to set up some food and water bowls INSIDE the house as well, in secluded areas, just in case he was still inside, and to monitor those levels as well.  

God DAMN it.

 The following day, Monday, I had to work, but I had some new ideas on where to look in the neighborhood for Good Boy, so I texted the adopter.  I shared my ideas, and asked if she had had the flyers made up yet.  No, she said, she didn't have five dollars to spend, and wouldn't have the money until Friday.

MotherF*CKER.

I called the rescue and asked them to get some flyers made up.  I told them to put MY phone number, and the RESCUE's phone number on the flyer, but NOT the adopter's phone number.  By this time the application had been pulled from records and the grievous error had been discovered.  There was NO WAY this family was getting this cat back, especially since to date, the only people putting any effort at all into recovering Good Boy were rescue volunteers.   

By Monday night the flyers had been prepared and were off to the printer to be ready on Tuesday.  I put a new ad in the lost and found, now offering a $500 reward for his safe return, and excluding the adopter's contact info.    Possible sightings started trickling in, but none that closely enough matched Good Boy's appearance to warrant further investigation.  

On Wednesday morning, at which point Good Boy had been missing for ten days, the adopter contacted me.  She said that when she had gone to the upstairs kitchen the previous evening (the house was a former two-family loosely converted to a one-family, and still had a kitchen on each level), she opened up the cupboards under the sink and smelled cat pee.  She looked under the sink and found a hole next to the drain pipe. She angled a bowl of food into the hole (which only dropped a few inches before it hit the subfloor system) and when she checked it Wednesday morning, the food was gone.

Oh. My. God.

He was in the floor.  Good Boy was in the FLOOR!  

To be continued ...