JD, the curious cat

Those of you who know me well may remember that I am not a "cat lover" - in fact in college, while living with 5 other ladies, one of the roomies brought home a kitty and I strongly opposed having this kitten in the house, so she sent it home to live with her parents. I am not allergic to cats and I'm not even scared of them (anymore), so all in all, I'm not really sure where my strong feelings against cats even came from. Maybe growing up without them in our house has something to do with it, maybe it's their sneaky ways to pounce upon you when you're least expecting it, who knows the real reasons. All that being said - I am now (and have been for a few years) a cat owner!

Our cat is named JD and he came with as part of a package deal when JJ and I started dating. JD the cat was found in the woods back in the day when JJ was on a hike with some friends. This cat was totally wild and had a broken tail. JJ nurtured the cat back to health and named him JD for John Doe, since he didn't have a name to tell the vet when he took the cat in for his first visit. Mister JD is an indoor/outdoor cat, who has his claws and just simply enjoys being outside roaming the neighborhood. We live on a great street where are our neighbors love JD and his friendliness - some people have even been known to feed JD & give him cat treats.

Last week JD went missing - no one had seen him for a few days and he hadn't come in at night when I called for him at the end of the day. Somewhat strange for him to be gone, but the weather is warming up, so I wasn't too worried for the first 2 days. Then 2 days turned into 3 and 4 days and still no sign of JD. After being prompted by several questions from neighbors as to JD whereabouts, I decided to put a call into the SPCA to see if anyone had turned him in as a missing cat. No luck on that, so I printed up some flyers and posted pics of our missing pet.

After about 5 days, I got a knock on the door from a guy down the street who had some great news - they had found JD! There's a saying about cats that *almost* rings true in this case - "curiosity killed the cat" - perhaps you've heard of that? Well, curious JD had taken a stroll through our neighbors back yard and crawled into her shed last Wednesday while she was out doing yard work. Not knowing he was in there, she closed up the shed. After worrying about him over the weekend and trying to think of the last time she saw him, for some reason on Monday evening she decided to grab a flash light and open up the shed to see if that's where he was hiding. As soon as she opened up the shed, JD popped out and was back to his old ways, walking all around her yard.

We are very lucky that she thought of the shed, who knows how long he would have lasted locked up in there without food & water. Once he was freed, he scarfed down 2 cans of cat food in no time. Life is back to normal now (after a bit of a scare) and all is well in JD's world - he's out roaming the lawns again & loving the warmer weather and we are all loving that he's home!

(Especially Ella - they are "best friends" - you know!)