Quote:
Originally Posted by su2009
My Siamese cat was taken from my lanai on January 15, 2015 sometime between 9:30 p.m., when I saw him in his cat bed, and 4:30 a.m when I got up. We have a cat door from the inside to the lanai and this cat usually went out onto the lanai once or twice during the night just to watch the golf course.
Although I did not realize it at the time, that night the screen door to the outside was not loose and not latched (ours has to be pulled tight to latch). I had not remembered to check the outside screen door before going to bed. The night was cold and raining, and my cat hated the rain and would not have gone out in it. He also would not have gotten lost; he liked people and walked up and down the block when he was young, and all the neighbors knew him. When I got up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning, my Siamese cat was gone, there was a dog-sized muddy footprint on the lanai, and the other cat then refused to go out through the cat door onto the lanai for three months after that, even if I was with him. Of course, now I am very careful to make sure the screen door is pulled tightly and latched when I go in or out.
On August 3, 2015, a neighbor three doors up called me at 1 p.m. in the afternoon to let me know that a coyote was making her way down the backyards of the houses on the Kenya golf course side of our street, Bramble Terrace. As we spoke on the phone, the coyote arrived in our backyard. It was a young female, and she came up onto our patio in the daylight and stared into our lanai. She then sniffed carefully around the lanai and through the bushes in the back and on the side of our house before moving down to the next neighbors' house. It was raining that day, but coyotes have a very oily coat and she did not look even slightly wet – her ears were up and her bushy tail was full and not bedraggled at all.
She was clearly alert and hunting for prey, and she searched carefully through the bushes behind the other houses on the golf course. I have no idea whether she was the coyote who took our cat, but she certainly found our lanai a place of interest, and coyotes are unquestionably smart enough to work open a poorly latched screen door.
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Thank you for this post very much. Your coming forward to unequivocally put to rest denial that coyotes are Wiley enough to find kitties kitties on the lanai. Videos of coyotes show them breaking windows as well.
If I were you, it would be hurtful to have people disbelieve what I am sure of, accuse me of telling A fable about the disappearance of my sweet cat, or blaming me for leaving the door ajar, not caring that The reality of the awfulness Of replaying over and over my guilt for not protecting well, the sickening impossible longing to do over that nanosecond.
Hoping it was quickly done, I hope kitty neck was snapped! Just like that! between his favorite place and the portal the beast came in and out. There is no real comfort.
Dear One, may the Lord comfort you. May the readers you hope to spare from losing their innocence Violently get you when you describe the beast, now that you've looked him in the eye, you describe so beautifully and tragically what it's like, that you were the only one who knows that you are looking in the eye of the beast whose vicious ravening teeth savored at least the liver, possibly sharing kitty with pups.
I hope with you that the warning will not fall on deaf ears.
It is not easy being a prophet of doom.
Beyond a shadow of doubt, you know that a coyote ate your cat.
I know beyond a shadow of doubt, that when my cat goes to the highest farthest spot on in the lanai, out near the screen, where he can see out, and sit in the sun, he feels catly, kingly superior.
As the person responsible to protect him, the intelligent one, the researcher who learns everything she can about the enemy, beyond a shadow of doubt I know that in the dark silently invisibly a growing army is in training. Learning that cat-on-lanai is the best kill food. A cat that presents himself, like a gift, right out at the screen. Coyotes have a sort of beat you stalk, smelling, scoping out. In the wild it was tough, prey had to be chased.
Prey in the wild were fair game. Is it sporting, these fish in a barrel, is it moral to find the weakest point of entry, break in and snap! And back out the way the way I came in? Fowl on the lakes are yummy, but they are less cost effective.
The advantage is all ours..tame little cats are unwary, no trees On a alanai, and we climb better than a tame cat anyway. Easier. I'd say, than a sitting duck.
Ducks can fly.
Sheep to the slaughter. Screens are there to keep the kitty from having an exit when I tear it, exactly like our historical favorite, sheep penned up as lifestock.
Risky business. Farmers know we are there. They have big dogs, high fences, multiple traps, snares, poison, raid our nests, we win some and we lose some. Shotguns. We learned to work at night.
In TV we are learning when garbage days are, which houses have pets, where the dogs are trolled on lines like bait with no hook, which neighborhoods have the houses with the kill inside a fence---you just hop up, in, up, out. But you have to case the joint and work the day shift.
Cat-on-lanai is my favorite, night or day, like window shopping.
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