Please don’t judge my story, just looking for advice on the best way to handle my situation.
I had/have? a cat named Bridey, I got her when she was about 6 weeks old. She was my first “responsibility”, and had gotten her when I was 20 years old living on my own in my first apartment. She bonded to me and we had a happy life together, just her and I for about 2 years.
I met my husband (then bf) about 2 years in to having Bridey, and we moved in together pretty early on. Bridey came with me of course, and she didn’t really have any interest in bonding with my husband or his daughter (my now stepdaughter, she was about 4 at the time). She wasn’t mean to them, just disinterested. She continued to love and bond with me, but I don’t think she wanted more than 1 owner. I think I should have rehomed her at this point to a single, older owner but I was worried she wouldn’t bond to anyone else. Plus I believe a pet is a pet for life and I didn’t want to give her up just because I was starting a family. We got a 2nd cat to give Bridey some company, and she seemed to tolerate the new kitty (Bonnie). I should also mention that Bridey wanted desperately to be an indoor/outdoor cat. She was quick and always tried to get outside, I resisted but she would resort to clawing through screened in windows to escape. At a certain point I caved, and she would leave for a day or two to come home and start the indoor/outdoor cycle. I made sure she was spayed, up to date on vaccines and rabies to keep her healthy.
Cut to 5 years later, Bridey is 7 and I married my husband. We move from the city to the suburbs, and I find out I’m pregnant about 2 weeks after the wedding. We welcome our son, and we had also gotten a dog about 6 months earlier. We were about as responsible as we could be, all animals had regular vet care and food/plenty of love. At this point, Bridey had started to stay outside for longer periods of time. She would be gone for 2-3 weeks and come home for a week or two. Obviously we started having litter box issues and she seemed to be losing weight, so I tried to keep her in the house for longer periods of time to keep her fed and make sure she was okay. Try as I might, that cat would find any way she could to get outside.
Fast forward about a year after I have my son, Bridey came home after about a month of being out and stayed for a few days. She got out again, and this time she didn’t come back. I blame myself a lot for this, because I didn’t immediately notice she had been gone for even longer than usual. I started getting worried about 2 months in, and we tried to find her but I had a feeling she would have come home by now if she could. We thought the worst, and always kept an eye out for her but there was no sign of Bridey.
Fast forward to about 1 hour ago, 2 years after the last time I saw Bridey. My husband and I were sitting on my front porch, and Bridey walks right past us, meowing but not stopping. I am 99% sure it was her, we tried to quickly feed her and care for her but she disappeared behind our shrubbery before we could bring the food out.
My main question is this, if she does in fact want to come home after all this time, what’s the best way to handle this? I am mainly worried about diseases/rabies because she is way overdue on vaccinations at this point. Most are only good for a year and she has been gone for longer than that. There’s also a concern of her being feral and a danger to my kids/Bonnie/our dog. A lesser concern is acclimating her to home life again, such as the litter box. There is also the thought that if she wanted to be home, she would have come home a long time ago. Maybe she is happier to be outside? We left food out for her, and I will wait to see if she does want to come home. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks for reading my long wall of text.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ehya7w/my_lost_cat_suddenly_returned_home_after_2_years/
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