Un-Adopted

Edited to add: I would like to thank everyone for the kind and supportive comments you left on this post. I would also like to apologize to anyone who may have attempted suicide after reading it because it was so damn depressing. On a lighter note, guess who came back last night? Cinco! Not sure if he's here to stay or not, but he came in around midnight to check in with us. I even got a few licks. Time will tell as to whether or not he's back for good.


Our cat has run away.

I can't tell you how sad I am. In the past, he's left for a couple days here and there, but he's never been gone this long. It's been four weeks.

The most horrible part about it is that I know why he left and that we are to blame, which makes it that much worse.

We got our cat about four years ago from the pound. Husband named him Cinco because we adopted him on our 5-year anniversary of having met. Cinco was scared of everything when we brought him home. He spent the first few hours in our house hiding in the window drapes. It was clear that although he was only a few months old, he had already been traumatized by people in some way because he was such a skittish and timid kitten.

Over time, we gained his trust until eventually he was part of our new family. When we left for work, he would stand at the window and watch us leave, his little, furry head peeking out from the drapes. I remember being teary-eyed on more than one occasion, thinking of him being home alone all day waiting for us to return. When we arrived home, he always greeted us at the door and when we scooped him up, he would give us wet kisses by licking us on the face. His favorite napping spot was Husband's chest.

You know, they say that people can't really "adopt" cats; that cats adopt people. And he had adopted us.

About three years later, we got a puppy. Husband had been begging me for one ever since we had gotten married and I had resisted for a long time, but when he brought me to see some Chow/Golden Retriever puppies, I caved. The cuteness was too much for me to resist. (I know, Mrs. Chicky, I know. This is not the reason to buy a dog. Lessons learned, my friend. Lessons learned.)

So we brought home our chowlet and named her Luna. Luna is a wonderful dog, but what we didn't bet on is that Cinco would not find her so wonderful. Luna and Cinco did not get along from the beginning. At all. Cinco was terrified of Luna. He hid under our bed for days to avoid her. But we were determined to make them friends. With the help of a dog behaviorist, we tried techniques to bring them together. But somehow everything we tried just seemed to further traumatize poor Cinco. Then, one day, Cinco literally lost control of his bowels when I tried to bring them close to each other. I decided I couldn't do that to him anymore.

So we developed a routine that worked for both of them. We kept them both, but they each developed their own territories in the house. Basically, Luna dominated the entire house and Cinco remained on our bed all day. It was hard to look at him and not feel that he was a prisoner in his own house. At night, Luna would sleep in the garage (which she loved to do by the way) and Cinco would come and go from the house as he pleased. It all worked out OK for the most part, but during the day, Cinco was like a captive. I felt bad, but there didn't seem to be any other way.

They lived together like this for three years. And then we had Little Guy. And moved. All within the same year. And along with this upheaval, I also decided to stop allowing Cinco in the house at night because I read that cats can suffocate babies in their cribs. (Note: even though the rational part of me said the whole suffocation thing was probably a wives' tale, the easily-freaked-out, irrational-new-mama side of me said better to be "safe than sorry.")

So that's where we found ourselves when, four weeks ago, he went missing.

After he'd been gone for a couple weeks, I began to fear that he may have been hurt - perhaps, run over by a car. There had to be some reason why he hadn't come back yet. We went to a couple of our neighbors to ask if they had seen him. No one had.

Then finally, last week, an elderly neighbor two doors down said he had seen him in his yard. At that point, three weeks had gone by and I wasn't convinced that it was Cinco at all. I mean, surely Cinco would have come home by now if he were well and only two doors down. I gave him some food to put out for the cat. Just in case it was Cinco, I at least wanted him to have access to some food in case he was starving.

Then finally, two nights ago, I saw him. Sure enough, he was hanging around our neighbor's yard. I carefully crept up to him, and though it took some coaxing, he came over to me. I petted him for about 10 minutes and examined his coat. I expected him to look frail and haggard, but he looked great. His coat was shiny and he looked like he had been eating. In fact, he looked better than before he left us.

And that's when it hit me. He looked better than before he left us. Not only had someone obviously been taking care of him, but they had been taking better care of him then we had.

I scooped him up and carried him home. He resisted the whole way, and when I got him inside he jumped from my arms, scampered into our bedroom, and immediately hid under our bed. I felt like I had brought him back to a prison. It felt horrible.

That night after Luna had been "put to bed" in the garage, I put out Cinco's food and water on our back porch and let him outside. As soon as I let him out, he dashed right past his food bowl, ran across the yard, and leapt over the fence, headed in the direction of our neighbor's yard.

He was gone. Again. But this time, I knew he had left because he wanted to. He left because he couldn't stand living with us anymore. Because we had let him down. Because we are bad parents and haven't been able to figure out how to give him a good life in our home.

And that's also when I realized that we've been un-adopted.

I can't blame him, but I have no idea what to do about it. Or if I should do anything about it. But I can tell you one thing, being un-adopted feels like shit. Complete and total shit.