Rory's Return

Here's a repost from a FB update I shared earlier this week.

This is Rory, one of our two foster kitties. He's the most skittish cat we've cared for. He jumps at almost any noise, he shies away from being pet, and his wide eyes seem to perpetually convey panic. At night, though, he calms down a bit. He even likes to sleep in our bed. That's when Rory wants to cuddle.

A couple days ago our little guy bolted from the garage. We'd left it open a little too long and he was gone. It took no time for me to fear the worst. He's a big cat, but I worried that he's too gentle and too scared to take proper care of himself. Perhaps he'd gotten lost. I found it difficult to sleep, wondering about Rory's fate.

Then last night we heard him meowing from under our backyard deck. Though he was hungry, Rory kept his distance from our outstretched hands. He was sticking close to the house at least. Still, he seemed determined to avoid us.

That's when Jenny proposed that we leave the garage door open again, just a crack. 'There's no way he'll return to us that way,' I thought. But what else could we do? We don't have a pet-safe trap, and he won't be lured by food. So we opened the door and tried to sleep. I listening for his plaintive meows and wondered what would happen.

This morning we awoke to find Rory back in our bed!

Apparently he's decided that he can trust us, at least enough to crawl out from under the deck, hop the fence, wind his way around the house, come in through the garage, and climb the stairs to our room. And there he was, purring his little heart out on our comforter. Now he's lounging in the afternoon sun, relieved to be somewhere safe.