[DannyOcean_]

i've lost two cats in the last 5 years, very differently.

I had Butch for about 14 years when my family moved about a mile in town. he was always an outdoor cat. A couple weeks after we moved, butch disappeared. we looked forever, but never found him. We got a little kitty that i called beast that got run over within about 2-3 months.

1 year later, one of our old neighbors calls us and tells us "i think butch is in your old yard". Butch had wandered all the way back and had been living off of catching mice and such in the old neighborhood. We took him to the vet, got him cleaned after a year of living in the open, were very careful to let him go outside in small cautious steps, and he got used to the new house this time.

When he was about 18, the family moved again (i was in college at this point), to a different city. Butch was really arthritic and old by this point, and after a couple months at the new house he wandered off, probably to die. He's been gone for about 2 years now, so we probably won't be seeing him again liek the other time.