A Heidi Scare
AnimalCare 
May 27, 2015 
AnimalCare, NGOs 
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Note: You could fast forward to the end of this article (Heidi is back now). I hate suspense, so I won’t give you one!
Written earlier:
It’s not easy for me to write this as the last few hours have been difficult.
I came home from work today and my husband said Heidi did not look well. She was under the car during dinner time and although my husband placed food for her and she did eat, she did not finish her food. She was also seen drooling.
The word “drooling” made me instantly recall my traumatic experience with Bosco (and some of you might remember that too), and so we quickly went searching for Heidi.
We looked everywhere along the road and the playground and finally found her inside our drain, right outside our gate. We removed the drain cover and my husband went into the drain but he could not catch her at all. She scuttled out and evaded us.
If you know how difficult it is to catch a cat, you might empathise with this. We got near enough, but my husband got bitten. We also saw Heidi, sitting in the drain (so near and yet so far), snarling and drooling at the mouth, more due to anger than anything else, I think. She was very, very stressed out and upset that we were trying to coax her out to catch her.
If it was any consolation, she was still strong enough to run from us, crossing the road too (and luckily there was no traffic at about 4pm).
From our drain, she ran to the neighbour’s drain, right smack in the middle and hid behind a stack of roof tiles. There was no way anyone could get in there to catch her and chasing her would make matters worse. Zurik tried to help by blocking off the far end of the drain.
My husband thought a net might prove useful, just in case, so he went out to get one.
He returned with the net but that only made Heidi more angry, so she ran from the neighbour’s drain to about 5 doors down. I was following with a towel and the carrier, but we simply could not catch her.
She was already 5 doors away now so I knew it would be futile to pursue. I consulted a few friends and we all agreed that with restless cats, the only thing we could do was to let them calm down and come home when they are ready to do so.
It started raining (thankfully very lightly) and if Heidi was inside the drain, she would have no reason to come back yet as many parts of the drain are sheltered. It also did not help that there was a very loud tree cutting activity in our park in the evening.
It is 9.25pm now and I have been out to look for her many times, calling her name gently. It is too dark to spot her now and using a torchlight would just make her more angry.
Zurik accompanied me on all my rounds and Vincent was concerned too. Bless their kind hearts.
Heidi is a very strong-willed cat. It is not surprising that she is reacting this way, knowing her personality.
These are photos I had taken just this morning, and they were meant to tell two funny stories, but I cannot tell those funny stories anymore now.
Heidi is also rather anti-social in that she does not like to even eat together with the other patio cats. She would stay away and only eat if I serve her. This is her personality and we had always respected it. After all, she is an elderly cat and her ways are fixed.
We let Indy out to play in the living room this morning and Heidi appeared to be quite upset about it. Now, on hindsight, I don’t think she was upset, I think she might have already been feeling unwell. I had an inkling that she could have been unwell as she was making a funny noise, but I thought she was just objecting to Indy’s presence. Of course I now regret not acting upon my “inkling” this morning….
My husband also said that Heidi did not follow him to the park for taiqi this morning. Now, this has almost never happened before, so I guess she already was not feeling too well in the morning itself.
I have checked all her favourite spots, especially behind the rice cooker (she spends most of her time there), she is not there.
I’m going out to walk the length of the road again, but knowing how strong-willed Heidi is, I doubt she would return tonight.
Please pray that Heidi will be well and I am consoling myself that some things are just beyond our control.
Update:
It is 9.45pm now, and our prayers are answered!!
We found Heidi sleeping peacefully on our sofa!!
We had left the front door and patio door open for her to return and I guess she must have quietly come home, jumped onto the sofa and from the looks of it, she is quite tired.
The fact that she came home on her own and jumped onto the sofa (not hide in a corner) may indicate that she already feels better, I hope. I pray…
So, we’ve decided to let her rest for the night and will see how she is tomorrow morning.
Maybe I will still get to tell my funny stories tomorrow…
I want to thank the friends who kept vigil with me during those few difficult hours…thank you so much!
Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2015/05/27/a-heidi-scare/
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