Our cat Sylvester disappeared sometime around April 2, about six weeks ago. On Saturday afternoon we got a text from a neighbor with a photo asking if the cat in the photo was ours. It was blurry and hard to tell, so we rushed up to her house. It was Sylvester.
He was in her garage. He was drinking water in the photo our neighbor sent us, and he was drinking water when we got there. He was a thirsty cat.
Zeke and Sam checked him out when we brought him home.
He walked around a little, drank more water, and ate a little food. He was skinny, smelly and thirsty
Our neighbor was one of the first people we called about Sylvester when he disappeared, so she had been checking around her house. On Saturday she said her new dog led her to the garage with her barking. Apparently the barks were directed at Sylvester.
Our neighbor doesn’t park in the garage, but she had been going in and out regularly and had not seen the cat. It’s hard to believe he spent six weeks undiscovered in her garage, with her coming and going, without food and water.
He has a urinary tract problem that requires special food, all of which we recently returned to the vet because we expected never to see him again. In addition to being extremely skinny and bony, he has a generally poor physical appearance. We have been debating whether to take him to an emergency vet clinic on Sunday or wait till Monday so his regular vet can see him. We’ll have to see how he does overnight before we decide.
We have been speculating about what happened to him, but it’s a pointless exercise. Until we get a universal cat language translator I don’t think we’ll ever know the story.
This is such wonderful news! I’ve been thinking about Sylvester, wondering if you would ever see him again. I hope he recovers fully. He must be SO HAPPY to be home and surrounded by love. Wow! What a survivor he is. Please keep us updated. WELCOME HOME, SYLVESTER!!
Robin — We were really surprised that Sylvester survived, but not all is well with him. He had a big problem on his waste disposal end; it just wasn’t working. He had to stay at the vet’s for two nights so they could get his system working again. Unfortunately, the tail end of his digestive tract is stretched, and the vet is concerned that he might have ongoing problems. The vet told us to keep him inside for at least two weeks. And, again unfortunately, he isn’t using his litter box. He’s using the floor. That isn’t going to work for us. I’m not sure what we’ll do if he keeps peeing on the floor. Also, Mollie, who has her own litterbox, found Sylvester’s (unused) litterbox and said, “Oh boy! A new litterbox just for me!”
This is so sad. It reminds me of when our kitty cat Bonsai started using the floor for peeing. Not good. Then, he just stopped peeing and pooping, and that was the end of that. Is there any way Sylvester could be contained where he could pee and poop that wouldn’t be bad? A really big box to contain him, lined with old funky unusable towels? Just wondering. Poor Sylvester. Sorry for all of you.