Mulder

It's been over a week now since anybody saw our cat, Mulder. We've been doing everything in our power to find him -- ringing around all the voluntary organisations we can identify, flyering and postering, even going back to search at our last addresss (although honestly, even if he did head back in that direction, to have made it back across the river and through the city centre would be pretty astonishing). It's seeming unlikely, though, that he'll ever be coming back.

As I've said already, Mulder had never even stayed out overnight before last week -- tonight will be the ninth night he's been absent. We know he hasn't been taken in to a vet or shelter, or found by the council, as he has a subcutaneous ID-chip and we'd have been informed. It doesn't seem likely that he's been shut inside all that time, especially since we've distributed flyers asking our neighbours to check their sheds and similar. I can't honestly believe he decided to leave us of his own free will, either -- it would just be so out of character for him.

There is a chance that he somehow found his way into a car boot or something and was taken elsewhere, but that seems slim as well.

Of course we'll carry on doing all we can to find him, but I'm afraid it's looking increasingly as if something dreadful has happened to him -- either an urban predator (there are patches of waste ground nearby where I wouldn't be at all surprised to find foxes, and some of our neighbours have bloody big dogs as well), or an accident (we live near to several large roads and a train line)... and that his body is either somewhere inaccessible, where it won't be found for months or years, or else has already been found by someone who doesn't understand how much people love their cats, and has disposed of it without informing anyone.

It's upsetting to be writing this, but I can't honestly believe any more that another outcome is at all likely.

Mulder was a lovely cat -- so affectionate and loyal. He jingled and chirrupped when he ran to greet us, and would chew the finger of anybody who let him. He panicked easily, especially at the sight of things larger than himself, and would run madly ahead of anyone moving from one room to another, usually running back the other way a few seconds later. He would stand on top of us while we were watching television and assiduously knead at us with his claws, in the hope that doing this might provide him with a source of milk. At other times he would sit quietly on a chair or a shelf, or curl up asleep, cuddling his back legs with his front paws. I have rarely felt more content than those few times when I took a nap on the sofa, and Mulder slept too, warm and heavy on my stomach.

He will be very sadly missed.