LOST calico cat, PV Mall area
Amelia has been missing for a week from our cottage at Colonial Manor, the senior citizens residential facility between the Panther Valley Mall and the Panther Valley gated community. I do not have an adult picture of her, but you may recognize her from her attached kitten picture. She responds to her name, but will probably not come to you as she is leery of people she does not know. My number is (973) 948-0585. Please call if you think you may have seen her. Thank you.
Priscilla Zink To whoever sent me the email about the cat killed in front of the Colonial Manor cottages...thank you. The date is off by a couple of days, but everything else fits. My husband and I have lost a huge ray of sunshine from our lives, but at least we have closure. Thank you.
Greg 
Debbie 
A good day
Sugar & White Shoes 
Mom of 1&1 
BrandyB 
RAS 
Calico696 
Dansker 
Natari 
kj 
4catmom Sincere sympathy on your loss. It would break my heart if the same thing happened to my beloved kitty. But life goes on. How about going to a rescue center soon and adopting another? Love can happen again.
DannyC 
joyful Sad news, I was hoping for a happy ending. Sorry for the loss of our kitty.
I know it's little comfort but it gives closure and relieves you from always wondering what happened to your fur baby.
Bessie beautifully written and heartfelt, Priscilla. For what it's worth, I have 4 cats - 3 of them rescued from the great outdoors. Although one shows she would love to go out, all are fine indoors. And they are infinitely better off than they would have been, had I not caught them. So for what it's work, my experiences show cats can live quite happily indoors.
To the person who found Amelia and to everyone who offered sympathy: first, thank you so much for your outpouring of condolences. It means a great deal to me. Thank you also for not lecturing on the dangers of allowing a cat to roam. The decision whether to raise a cat indoor/outdoor or indoor-only is an individual one, not made lightly; neither option is 100% ideal. Every day I face the indescribable pain and guilt of knowing that, had we kept Amelia indoors, we would not have lost her so young. Every day I face the sad chore of retelling my husband who suffers from dementia that his kitty is not coming home.
My friends' cats watch birds from a perch on a window sill. Sometimes one will try to escape to the great outdoors, but...no... they do not seem unhappy. The word that best describes Amelia'a short life, however, is “joyous”. In our last home she had a cat door through which she exploded every time she saw a squirrel on the deck and through which she hauled her treasures...a leaf, a twig, a small rock, a feather (twice with the bird still attached) which she then deposited in the bathtub where she kept her toys or on the pillow beside me as I slept. I suspect, also, that she simply liked to hear the door flap. After she found her way to the roof of our chateau-style home, she spent hours up there, sunning herself, bathing, surveying her world while we fretted below that she would fall. When she found a little heat-vent cave just her size in the fireplace and did not come when we called, we agonized that she was lost. Her little cave would have remained her secret forever had we not heard her in there purring.
After our move to Hackettstown I managed to keep her in for awhile, but eventually I relented, as she was fearful of cars and, seemingly, of the road. She busied herself close to the cottage...bug-hunts on the lawn, a dust-up with a cranky Canada goose last summer, stake-outs under the bird feeder, but she stayed away from the road. It only takes once.
I am sorely tempted by your suggestions that we adopt another kitty but, even knowing that life watching birds from a window is still far preferable to waiting in a cage for a forever home that may never come...and despite our tragedy, adoption would not be right for us. I am still indoor/outdoor oriented, and we now live on a busy road. When we adopted Amelia we lived in a lakeside community on a short, sparsely-traveled road that dead-ended in the woods. Had I known that we would eventually move to a residential facility on 517, I would not have adopted her. I wish we could take in another cat, but I know that I could not promise to keep it safe.
If anyone has a cat they let outdoors at least put a breakaway reflective collar on them also a small bell on it would be good also .
Janster Commenting is no longer available.