We have a barn kitty who never leaves the property. She basically cuddles in heated bed with her buddies. When she left for a week I thought she died. But this morning she’s back. WTF?
They do it to torture us 
My own little Verminator was a Hothouse Flower
No taste for going out in the snow.
She preferred to observe: 
So when she went missing the night of a horrendous blizzard & stayed gone 3 days, I was sure something had got her 
But she turned up, acted like nothing had happened… Which, in her mind, it had not. 
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Several years ago we had one go missing on a day with a thunderstorm. She was gone 14 days, and obviously we thought the worse. She’d gotten into a neighbor’s shed somehow and also somehow couldn’t figure out how to get back out 
She bolted out when they opened the door, and it was a shed they hadn’t been in all Winter, so HOW she got in ,without being able to get back out…
In early January another kitty went missing - perfectly fine Saturday, warm-ish, no rain or wind or anything. 17 days later she came home.
Who knows…
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it too crazy of an emotional rollercoaster when barn kitties go awol…
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We have a feral we feed that I am sure makes the rounds ro check out other houses. I think he likes to see who will put out the best food. Sometimes I won’t see him for weeks.
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It’s a cat, they live to make our lives more “interesting”. My daughter’s bottle baby got out last summer, took us a couple of days to finally capture her. I spent more time crawling around my house in the shrubberies and around the parkland across the road than I really want to admit to looking for her (especially when the wench was likely hiding right next to the house under the hostas).
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We “lost” a barn cat a few years ago. Could not find her, thought the worst.
I helped with the search on the first day, did not go to the barn the next day, and on the third day, when I lifted my tack trunk lid, she shot out. She had sneaked in and cuddled down in my saddle pads when my back was turned and I closed her in. Over 48 hours.
Amazingly, no poop. Pee, but no poop.
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My barn cats are gone for days at a time. My house cats ( indoor/outdoor) would do the same as yours on occasion. Have no idea where they go or what they do but when they finally come home, they look the same as when they left.
I guess it is something some cats do when the mood strikes.
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I had an older tom cat show up years ago. I don’t think he was dumped - he was a traveling man looking for female companionship if you know what I mean. He came to my house, found out canned food was served and decided to stay. I realized I was stuck with him even though he was mean as a snake to my other cats. A lower lobotomy fixed that and he turned into a sweet guy. But before he got fixed I left the windows down in my truck and he got in there and sprayed all over. Thus his name “Stinky”. Never got the smell out of my truck.
Before he was fixed he would disappear for days/ weeks at a time, He would show up very hungry, stay for a while and head out again. After he got neutered he stayed home, either in the barn or the front porch. No more trips for Stinky. Until maybe ten years - he started disappearing again. Gone for a few days and back. Then I saw where he was going - about a mile up the road. Could have been where he was born. So I find him up there one day, throw him in the car and drive him home.
The next morning he had a snotty nose and was sneezing a lot. I remembered him sneezing last time I saw him. I took him to the vet who didn’t see much but gave him antibiotics for his snotty nose. Then the vet tech saw it - he had grass blades stuck up his nose running into his throat. She pulled them out. He stopped sneezing. He went back home and never left again. I guess he was looking for somebody to get that grass out of his nose.
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Cats sometimes go on “walk a bout.” Try not to worry. It doesn’t help.
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That’s awesome, I’m using that! 
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Yeah, there is a lifetime barn cat (fixed) at my barn who went missing for about 10 days. It’s a woodsy rough-terrain area with a lot of wildlife. Of course we all thought the worst.
I was hand-walking my horse for a time, going back into the woods and rough area, and horse & I were climbing into some sticky places to look for his body - frankly. As he could have ended up underneath or tucked inside rocks, dead trees, etc. But nothing. No smell, either. Of course maybe he wasn’t on the property.
Sure enough,one day he was back for breakfast. He acted as if he had never been away.
If AI ever gets to being able to read the minds of animals, maybe we find out where cats go and what dogs smell. Although it might be kind of overwhelming.
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Because cats do whatever they want. shrug
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I have a couple who do that. Sonic’s been here since he was 8-10 weeks old, and sometimes he will be gone for a few days at a time (his record is a touch over 2 weeks). I have an older semi-feral tom who wanders - or used to - all over. Both are neutered, both love their home, but sometimes cats just have to drive us insane!
Sometimes they do catch a ride in a trailer or vehicle. Or get locked in a neighbor’s garage or storage shed. And then there’s all those stories about kitties who have two homes . . .
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I’ll never find it online again – but there was a cat owner who put a collar with a tag on her cat. The tag said basically “this cat has a home, please call”. And some other tips like “don’t feed! he will never leave!”
And then of course there is the greatest idea of all, a collar camera with a lot range for the signal. Finally maybe we will know.
Link: “Lost” (on purpose) cat looking thoroughly annoyed to be short-stopped in his travels. He had a bucket list and now it is all poof blown up and he has to go home. Dam. That’s how I read his expression.
And the reverse case - the cat-finders suggest to the cat that he go on home and send a note with him, addressed to his “owners” (or housemates from the cat’s point of view).
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Our Siamese mix once left for 2 months. I think something chased her off the property onto the hunting property behind us and she got disoriented. One day she was back, thin as a rail and happy to see us. In 12 years it’s happened that one time.
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Why do cats do whatever cats do?
Consider that cats live in different dimensions of space and time than most other critters inhabit.
All I have told our cats when where did you go comes up is, please, mind the gap … 
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i had a boy who would go missing like that. He was gone for over two weeks once, but usually just a couple of days. And when he returned, he always looked good. And the clue to his whereabouts was that when he came home he smelled like a perfume that was not familiar. A little detective work revealed that he was sharing himself with a neighbor.
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So true. We had a sweet cat show up at the back stretch than made himself at home in our shedrow. A couple weeks latter my DD and I were talking with another trainer who hauled in to race, and it turned out it was his cat, a favorite of his granddaughter, who was heartbroken at his loss. Seems puss had stowed away on his trailer one night. He picked him up that night and one little girl was delighted.
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I had one indoor/outdoor cat that dissappeared for 3 months one summer. Next summer it was 2 months. She appeared that time because we let the basement food run out. She was mad and told is all about it. Best guess she was coming in the basement cat door at night so we never saw her.
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