Finally!!!! Success!!!!!

I am happy to announce that Shasta meow was finally caught this morning, and is happy to be back inside!

She was apparently hiding under a part of our deck that is accessible to cats but not humans.  She did not come out when we called.  We never saw her the whole time.  The dogs did not bark as if they saw her.  We looked all over, notified neighbors, put an ad on the radio (they're free for lost & found), and it appears that she was only about 10 feet from the door.

I had put a live trap out for several nights, baited with tuna, nothing.

Then, two nights ago, I thought "maybe she is so used to her in-the-house routine that she doesn't know what to do!"  So I put her purrsonal food and water bowls outside, and made sure there was some crunchy Iams in her bowl (just like in the house).  I made a big deal of filling the food bowl...talking to her (even though I didn't know if she could hear me) and rattling the cat food bag.  That night, something ate all the cat food and left the tuna in the live trap.  I put the crunchies out the next night, and it snowed just the tiniest bit.  And what did I see?  Kitty paw prints in the snow!  I followed them to try to see where she was hiding, and that's why I think she was hiding under that part of the deck (there were tracks coming to and from that area, but no tracks leading to a different part of the yard.

So last night, I put just a few crunchies in the food bowl and put it just inside the trap (where she wouldn't spring it).  When I realized that food was gone, I put the refilled bowl in the trap as "bait".  Viola!!  Mad/scared kitty!

I guess she maybe doesn't like tuna, even though she begs for it when she's in the house?  << shrug >>

I am so relieved.  She was sleeping on the bed when I left for work.  She's still fat, but maybe a little less so.....and I regret thinking that DH may not have been truthful about what happened.  When he first told me that Shasta had escaped, he wasn't worried at all, I guess he thought she would just come home by herself.  The not worried thing made me suspicious.  But as the days went by, he got more and more worried, too.  I have no doubt now that things happened exactly like he said.

This has gone from a really bad week to a pretty good one.   In addition to getting Shasta back, my job at the group home gave me a $300 bonus!!!  We usually get a bonus from there (although I never count on it) but some years it's $25, some years it's $50, and in the six years I've worked there, the biggest bonus ever was $75 a couple of years ago....so I was shocked and amazed when I checked my bank account today.  Yippee!!!!  Now Lester, who has moved into our porch voluntarily, can go and get some shots and have a little operation.  Woohoo!!!!