Last week, I left you in terrible suspense about our little Ruby. She got out while we were away and was nowhere to be found when we came home.

Spoiler alert, she’s fine and still ruling the dog:

She is also the Queen of High Places:

So, we searched the house and offered her favorite treats, canvassed the neighborhood, and called the local shelter (where lost cats from our municipality would be taken).

When I called and asked if they had any black cats that had arrived in the past few days (right after Halloween), the woman on the phone almost chuckled, “Black cats? There are about twenty here right now.”

I did what any dedicated mother with two weepy, exhausted children would do on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. I drove down to the Humane Society and asked if I could look at all their black cats. I’m not Ruby’s favorite person, so I wasn’t even sure if she would respond to my voice. But I knew she was missing several incisors, because I had removed them.

The shelter staff weren’t too enthusiastic about me traipsing through all their cat wards looking in cat mouths, but I explained that I was a veterinarian (I’ve been vaccinated against rabies and I’m probably less likely to get bit than the average feline oral explorer) and promised to sanitize my hands before touching each cat.

They weren’t exaggerating on the phone. I really did look into the mouths of twenty black cats. No Ruby.

Coming home empty-handed was not great that evening. We had a tearful dinner, and the girls were trying to convince their father to go out into the November dusk for one more search of the yard and adjacent park, when there was a knock at the door.

Our neighbor was there, with a small black cat in her arms. “Does this look like your cat?”

Two shrieks of joy, one tremendous leap into the house and many many ‘thank yous’ later, Ruby was back home. She had been found hiding in the garage two doors over. And our pet-loving neighbors went out to check because we’d alerted them to a missing cat.

Ruby is stealthy cat. If they hadn’t been looking for her, they may not have seen her.

The next week, I brought her to work and implanted a microchip. But she’s not shown much interested in the ‘outside’ since that adventure.

Next week, I’m going to start looking for facts on lost cats and how to get them home, as I research a guide for people like us, who are desperately seeking their little furball.

The next week, I brought her to work and implanted a microchip. But she’s not shown much interested in the ‘outside’ since that adventure.

Next week, I’m going to start looking for facts on lost cats and how to get them home, as I research a guide for people like us, who are desperately seeking their little furball.