More Sightings?

The camera surveillance I have at Carmen's house is not capturing any other cat images.  It's just her cat and the black-and-gray tabby.  If I don't see any new cats on video for another day or two, I will move it to the Vista Park area.  A woman called me who lives in that area, who also has a ruddy Abyssinian, telling me that her friend who comes over to her house and is familiar with Abyssinian cats said that she had seen one in her backyard.  She lives on Ridgeway, close to Vista Park.  However, when I called her, she was back-pedaling, telling me that the cat she saw may not have been an Aby, it was a week ago, did not get a good glipmse, etc.  May be she just wanted to be left alone, and she wasn't exactly being helpful.  She did say that the cat ran towards Culebra Rd.  So on Saturday, I did a door-to-door handing out about 20 flyers to the houses around Vista Park, along Ridgeway, Vista, Culebra, and Chiltern.  I talked to a few residents who happened to be at home at the time, and one woman on Culebra said she saw a brown cat when her dog was staring into the backyard and barking at something.  That was a week ago as well. So perhaps, Chai or her look-alike ran from the Ridgeway house to the Culebra house across the street.  At least it's two sightings in that area.  I will need to scope out an area that would be welcoming to a cat somewhere here to set up the camera.

I just printed out a map of the area to hand out more flyers.  There are a few cul-de-sacs in the area and lots of wooded area.  May be she's hanging out there.  If the other sightings were true Chai sightings, she is traveling northeast of home, and she may end up here.  It is a possibility.  It's about a mile from my house.  I will wait for more phone calls after distributing handouts.

In the meantime, I've also made my car into the Lost-Cat Headquarters, not only stocking my car with supplies of cat food, flyers, flashlight, staple gun, duct tape, etc, but also taping florescent posters on both rear passenger windows and the rear window of my Prius.  There is no law against posters on cars, so there.  I don't give up that easily.

The camera set up in my backyard has caught a couple new cats.  One is the same one that hangs around 1585 Black Mountain.  I guess he gets around.  Another one is a calico or tortie, rather bushy looking.  I have never seen this one before.  So new cats are finding the feeding station.  I am hoping that one of these days, Chai also finds food to eat here.

So, as to my plans for the next several weeks, if I don't find Chai during this time, I will distribute more handout flyers to different neighborhoods.  The next surveillance area would be around Vista Park or a street or two to the east of it.  The next spot will be at 1460 Marlborough.  I keep getting calls about a brown cat in this area, and I want to make sure it's the same brown cat which is not Chai.  Maybe there are several brown cats here.

For crying out loud, she's been gone for over 5 weeks, so she better have found a new territory that she is hanging around.  Hopefully, she's staying put in one area so someone sees her on a consistent basis.  Where are you Chai???

Huge Disappointment

Now the trail camera has been set up right outside the open garage door at Carmen's house.  I set this up after I got a call from Carmen on Tuesday night that a small brown cat that she's never seen before came around to eat at her cat's food bowl.  She said this cat came around 3 times that night.  So I set the camera up yesterday morning.

Then last night,as I was driving home, I got another call from Carmen that she has my cat locked up in her garage.  I was cautiously optimistic since most of the sightings happened not to be of Chai.  I drove in the rain, and as fast as possible.  When I got there, the garage light was not working.  Good thing my car has been converted as a missing cat search headquarters so I had a flash light, head light, feeding supplies, leather gloves (in case I need to handle Chai who may have gone quite wild by now), extra flyers, staple gun, duct tape, etc.  I took the flash light and searched in the garage, first under the cat, then under the old beds that were in a spare room off of the garage.  I found a cat, but not it was NOT Chai.  A black (or dark brown) and gray marbled/striped tabby.  A cute cat, but definitely not Chai.

 Brown (or Gray) and Black Marble Tabby

The adult grand daughter thought that was my cat, but Carmen said the cat she was did not have any stripes, and all brown.  I was disappointed, but the fact that Carmen said the cat in the garage is not the cat she saw on Tuesday night gave me renewed hope.  I still thanked them profusely as they are trying to help me the best the can.  They are really nice.

I doubt that Chai would be moving around when it is raining.  She never went outside if it's raining in the past.  I think she was holed up somewhere last night, not moving around.  It's finally sunny again after another round of showers in the morning.  Hopefully, it will be dry tonight so that Chai would come around.  I hope it is Chai that Carmen saw the other night.

Municipal Code Violation

Not such a great day for me.  No new cats have been caught on the trail cam at either of the locations.  Now the raccoons found their way to the feeding station.  They are everywhere!

Hillsborough Police called me and told me that my lost-cat posters are against the municipal code.  They are taking them down wherever they see them.  If they are going to take them down, I am not going to tell them where I posted them all.  Let them find them themselves.  My tax dollars at work.  So heartless.  Now I can't even post any new posters here.  I guess the only thing is to post it at my house fence since this is MY PROPERTY.  So discouraged and depressed now.

The Cat at Tina's Side Yard

So it looks like the cat Tina saw at her house on 1585 Black Mountain is not Chai.  I captured a small cat eating at the feeding station that I had set up with my trail cam pointing at it.  This cat came by in the afternoon and several times during the night to feed.  She is petite, has exotic looking face, and has brownish fur but more like a dilute tortie with some tabby stripes on her legs and face.  She also has some white on her face and legs.  Chai has no white fur anywhere.

I sent the video to Tina to confirm.  She thinks this is the cat she saw but not 100% sure...  She mentioned how the eyes were slanting upwards, and this cat definitely has that look.  Chai has more roundish eyes.  Anyways, Tina said she would keep her eyes open for Chai.

 Cat that Tina Saw (NOT Chai)

I will leave my camera there for another week.  Then I will move it down to Joyce/Wedgewood/Buckingham area.  Probably either inside or right outside her garage where cats are seen eating.  Carmen, the elderly lady who has 4 min-pin dogs inside her house and a really old cat living in her garage, gave me permission to do so.  After this does not pan out, I have no idea where to set up the second camera.  The first camera is still in the secluded area in my backyard.  The same black-and-white cat comes to visit every night.  Since John fixed the broken fence, I see no more raccoons or dogs (yay)!

A Promising Lead

Very promising lead came in early in the evening yesterday.  Tina who lives at 1585 Black Mountain, the same location where I had the trail camera set up right outside the fence a couple of weeks ago and took videos of the same three cats of which none were Chai, called to tell me that she thought she saw Chai lounging underneath a chair right outside the door to her side yard.  Before this call, when I got her permission to set up the camera outside the fence, she was insistent that none of the cats that hang around her property was Chai.  She vaguely implied that one kind of looks like her, but Chai has cuter face.  When the camera was set up there before, she was right; there was a cat that in black-and-white, had similar coloring as Chai, but larger with shorter stripey legs and small ears.  Not Chai.

This time she said the cat she was was petite, triangular face and eyes that go upwards, just like in the picture of Chai that's posted.  She said that this cat did not look like an ordinary cat, but rather looked like an expensive cat.  She was gracious to let me set up the trail camera about 10 feet from the chair, under an awning and protected by three walls and concrete floor about 3'x4'.  Her side yard looked very secluded, serene, with shrubs around.  I think if I were a cat, it would be a good place to hang out.  I also put some dry cat food and a can of wet cat food in two separate paper bowls, and used a bowl lying around there for water.

I went back at 8:30pm tonight.  The food was gone!  I set out some jack mackerel, some leftover shredded roast chicken, and more water.  I am a bit nervous that the camera is set up a little too high.  Tomorrow morning, I will adjust it so that it is about 1' to 1.5' from the ground.  Hopefully it captured cats eating during daylight as well as night time.  This is the most promising lead to date.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that Chai is captured on video within a week.

I also got a call from Grace who lives at 1460 Marlborough.  She first sent me a pic of a cat she saw.  I think it was the same cat that I saw outside her property a couple of weeks ago.  It is so nice that people care.  I thanked her profusely for her effort and to keep on looking, that Chai is still missing.

Just as there are really nice people, there are heartless people who tear down my posters.  Jerks!!!

 Grace's photo of a brown cat in her yard

Possum

Getting pretty discouraged here, and also feel pretty exhausted.  Yesterday, I got a call that a woman saw a cat that looks like the cat on my lost-cat poster right behind a gate at this ginormous chateau on Ralston (3250 Ralston).  I met her at West School, and I followed her in my car to the mansion.  The mansion was large and the grounds looked infinite.  I called out to Chai, but again, per usual no signs of Chai or any other cat for that matter.  This site was 1.7 miles from home, so I doubt that she would have traveled this distance.  But you never know...  Based on one account, an Aby rescuer trapped an Aby that belonged to someone 5 miles away.  The owner said the cat had been gone for a year!

The trail cam in the park captured a possum devouring all of the food that I had set out last night.  Not enough for that blond lab to eat at 6:30am.  Poor doggy :)

A Possum

I went to Joyce/Buckingham/Wedgewood area again this morning. I talked to an elderly lady (Carmen) who has a cat that lives in her garage and 4 min-pins inside.  She said she had 3 cats and now down to 1.  2 just disappeared one day and never came back.  I hope that's not Chai's fate...  She leaves the door to the detached garage open so that her cat can go in and out.  I checked out the garage.  It looks like a haven for a cat.  Perhaps Chai come around here?  I got Carmen's permission to set up the trail camera in her garage.  She was super kind and sympathetic.  I will leave the camera at the Crossroads Park for one more night and then move the camera to her garage area.  Still trying my darnedest to locate Chai's new territory.

No Luck at the Crossroads Park

Well, the trail camera that I had set up at the Crossroads Park captured a yellow lab and a fluffly white/cream (or orange, as orange shows up as white in infrared videos) cat eating at the feeding station over the last two days.  Nothing else thus far.

Fluffy White (or Orange) Cat

The feeding station in my backyard is frequented by that black-and-white fluffy cat, and sometimes raccoons.  No other cats except when Justin let out Java, he was sniffing around the feeding station (empty during the day).

I went to talk to a few neighbors at Joyce/Buckingham last night.  The 11-yo girl, Lucy's daughter, was positive the cat that sat for a moment at the mound in front of her house was Chai.  I showed her additional pictures of Chai, and she was sure.  The girl saw the cat twice last week, on Wed and Fri.  Lucy has two big dogs, so I doubt that Chai would be hanging around her house.  I will rule this house out as a potential site for my next trail camera and feeding station setting.  Lucy also told me that there is an old house at the corner of Joyce and Wedgewood where the people feed stray cats.  I will go talk to them as well.

Alcy, another neighbor across the street from Lucy said she saw a brown cat on Monday run across 1370 Buckingham when a small dog barked.  She did not get a great view of her, but she said the cat was definitely NOT fluffy, but long.  Well, Abyssinian cats are known for their tubular body shape.

Funny 1370 Buckingham is also the address where a woman named Audrey called me when she got my postcard to check out the cat sitting on her backyard fence.  When I got there, the cat was still there, but not Chai.  It was dusk so she could not tell exactly the color of the cat, but when it moved, I could tell that it was more charcoal gray with marbling going on on the side of the body.  Not Chai.  It seems that she loves cats and want to help me.  I knocked on Audrey's house, but this time her mother answered the door.  Very sweet lady.  They are keeping their eyes open for Chai.  I asked her to talk to Audry to set up the cat trap she has.  I may go back there to talk to Audrey tonight to see if we can set the trail camera somewhere there.

I hope the girl is right about Chai sightings.  I called for Chai walking around that neighborhood around 8pm, and again around 11:30pm.  No signs of Chai or any other cat.  I sprinkled cat food around the curbside around where I posted the flyers.  May be she will come out of hiding and get some of the food today.

On a sour note, I noticed that about 3 of my flyers have been taken down by someone.  How could they be so heartless???