Okay, the title is a little more dramatic than the circumstances call for…maybe. The whole thing certainly felt dramatic at the time.

Today is the first day of my vacation, so I was trying to sleep late. But I heard my puppy, Daisy, barking like crazy at something. She just wouldn’t stop…she kept barking and barking. Finally, I got out of bed to see what the problem might be. I saw Willow sitting on top of the cat cage. Not IN the cage…on top of it. And Oz was nowhere to be found. I hurried outside and saw Daisy was barking at something under the deck. I figured it must be Oz she was barking at. I got a flashlight and saw that it was, indeed, Oz under there. And I couldn’t coax him out because he was afraid of Daisy. I doubt Daisy would hurt him, but the barking was unnerving. I finally yelled at my husband to get out of bed and help me. He had to run Daisy back to the other side of the house. I called and called to Oz, but he just wouldn’t come out. All I could think of was 1) I had to have both cats available to be “fixed” tomorrow morning, and 2) We have coyotes around here. The coyote issue is the reason my cats are in a huge cage on the deck instead of roaming free. So I’m really freaking out because Oz won’t come out. Finally, I figured out what to do. I got Willow out of the cage and held her while calling to Oz. It worked like a charm. As soon as he saw Willow, he started toward me. Now I had another problem. Oz is getting really BIG. And Willow was struggling in my arms to get to Oz. But my husband gently took Willow from me so I was able to scoop Oz up into my arms. What a sigh of relief came from me. Now the two culprits are safely ensconced in my house.

Oh, here’s the way they got out. My son and his girlfriend were here when I got back from church yesterday. He had let the cats into the house so the girlfriend’s little girl could play with them. Apparently, he had opened both doors of the cage, and when he put them back in, he only latched one of them. It took the cats awhile, but they finally figured out one of the doors was unlatched. What a scary thing it was!

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