I decided that because I have been so upset about taxes, etc., it is time to write something that is a little lighter! And because I haven’t told you any cat or dog stories, it is about time. Now, I can’t remember if I ever told you abort our Yul’s adventures or not. If I did, here it goes again, and if I didn’t, you will hardly believe it.

Every year when we go to our cottage on Cape Cod, we travel like a circus train. We always take our cats, dogs and a large hibiscus tree. And coming home is just as bad except after a whole summer away, we have even more. Malcolm has a whole system on how to capture the cats for their ride home and this particular year (three years ago, I think) he got all three into their crates and put the crates right out next to the car for loading when he had everything else inside. They usually just sit there and wait to be loaded, but this particular year, Yul banged his head against the front of his crate and broke free. And we spent over an hour trying to catch him. We were loaded and ready to go, but no Yul. So after a harrowing hunt and time awasting. Malcolm said we had to leave him there… alone. Of course, we left a bowl of food and a lot of water for him and drove away… very upset.

We had asked Sarah if she could come and try to catch him and she and Rene did, every day. They saw him, but that was about it. He refused to be caught. Worse than that, raccoons had been on the porch and eating the food and leaving all sorts of nasty presents for us. But fortunately, no pieces of Yul.

After about two and a half weeks, Sarah was starting to get tired of chasing that cat. Our cottage is about 25 miles from their house and about 10 miles from where they both work and with the traffic, it was almost too much to ask. But one day, when she got to the cottage she heard him mewing from under the cottage and she spent quite a while trying to coax him out, to no avail. Then she called me and I had an idea – she should put her cell phone right in the hole where he was hiding, and I would call him. And believe it or not, he kept mewing and I kept calling, and all of a sudden he peeked out of the hole and quick as a flash Sarah grabbed him.

She rushed to her car and put him in and then she called Malcolm and told him that she would meet him in Concord, N. H. in about three hours and give him his boy cat back. And believe it or not, it worked!

I want to share with you that Yul, who was a rescue cat, had always been a little standoffish and just not as friendly as the other two cats. Well, no more! He is now Mr. Friendly, and when we go to the Cape, he stays right around wherever groups of family are gathered. And when it is time to go home? He is the first one into his crate and can’t wait to go home.

It just shows you what a few weeks with wild and nasty raccoons will do! I guess it taught him how good he really has it. Not my first choice on how to teach and train a Siamese cat, but in this case, it worked great!