The Tale

A Bit About Cheeto

Cheeto was a runt who had survived an early life sickness according to the folks we adopted him from. His litter mates had all been adopted but Cheeto had not yet because he was eating litter for some unknown reason which made him a special needs kitty. He had made friends with the house cat of his foster parents and would sleep on top of her for warmth while he waited for adoption. We had recently lost our special needs cat Ollie who we all fell in love with, we still miss you Ollie Boy. Ollie was Orange with a white bib and we knew we wanted another special needs kitty to care for. Cheeto was another Orange boy with a white bib we found while searching for a new cat to care for. However Cheeto was in California and we were in Oregon. A few weeks passed and we decided to get another cat named Mr. Smee who suffered from neurological issues that resulted in the lack of proprioception or the ability to know where his limbs were. This made him walk a bit like the Disney character he shares his name with and the folks who who named him nailed it. Mr. Smee was a young cat who wanted to play with our older wobbler Kiki but she was having none of it. We decided to take a long weekend to go get Cheeto from California so that Mr. Smee would have a young friend to play with.

A young Cheeto.

Mr. Smee

Cheeto came home with us that weekend and we kept him and Mr. Smee separated for a week so they would get used to each others scents. Cheeto spent his days playing in my bedroom and nights sleeping on my head. Eventually we introduced Mr. Smee to Cheeto and while there were a few small fights they really got along well and Cheeto was fast and agile and would run around and Mr. Smee would play chase, they were friends.

A few weeks after we noticed a problem with Cheeto, he stopped eating and started to show signs something was wrong. This worsened very rapidly to the point that he could not eat or stand. We took him to the emergency vet and we were told it was either Toxoplasma gondii or FIP. They informed us that if it was FIP is was nearly 100% fatal but they treated him for the Toxoplasma gondii to see if he improved. The Vet did mention that there was some experimental treatment for FIP but not much else.

Cheeto did not improve with antibiotics and worsened rapidly. We took Cheeto to his normal Vet and got more information about the potential cure for FIP and they confirmed that he most likely had FIP. Cheeto was losing weight fast and his neurological symptoms had become very pronounced.

I began to try and find the treatment mentioned by the ER vet and came across a Facebook group called FIP warriors. After some hesitancy about the veracity of the groups claims and with Cheetos worsening conditions I finally contacted them. The folks at FIP warriors worked fast to get me a vile of the cure and some syringes so I could start injections immediately. We drove to Portland to a house on the west side and a young lady answered and gave us a vile and syringes then explained to us what things we needed to do. The folks on Facebook calculated the dose based on the medication concentration and we began injections. I was really bad at giving injections and very scared I was doing something wrong by giving him some black market medication or by my very poor skills injecting him with the medication. Cheeto's Vet was great and we brought him in for injections and they trained me until I could get it right.

Cheeto improved within three days, began waking around, his weight stabilized and eventually he started to grow again.

84 days of injections took its toll on Cheeto he became fearful of any humans he saw and would hide. After the observation period he was considered cured but the lasting effects of the injections left him with anxiety, bumps on his back that were noticeable when we pet him and I have never seen him jump very high or climb. The illness also seemed to have stunted his growth and he was small for an adult male cat.

Cheeto remained an affectionate cat who would sleep with me or Mr. Smee at night. He would routinely work his way onto my chest for back scratches and cuddles. We eventually started letting him out in our fenced in back yard where he preferred to spend most of his time. At some point my wife found him on the other side of the fence so we put up a some smaller push in fencing to block any chance of him escaping. Life was good and we were all happy.

A Very Bad Week

Cheeto by this time was two years old and had become accustomed to chasing squirrels and stalking birds in our back yard. While helping a coworker move his mothers in law's belonging I received a frantic call from my wife. Cheeto had escaped the back yard and was no where to be seen. My son and I rushed home. We began searching for him but there was no sign until my wife shouted that he was over in the cul-de-sac near the neighbors garage. My son and I came around the house and we rushed over to get him. In hindsight this was probably the wrong move to approach him so rapidly as it startled him and he ran through a hole in fence. His little head was peaking out watching us so I called him and he burst back through the hole right toward me. I thought he recognized me but right as he got near me he dodged my hand and searched for a new escape. Feeling trapped by us Cheeto ran through my son's hands and right back through the hole and he was out of sight. We went around to the back of the yard he had run through and found another hole that he escaped through out into another section of our neighborhood.

The rest of that day we searched relentlessly for Cheeto. I talked to so many of the neighbors around where he was last seen but there was no sign. Until about 1 AM when I drove down a forested lane, that formed a straight line, from the hole he had run through. The lights on my car highlighted a cat near the end of the lane where train tracks ran through a forest. Quickly I got out of the car but he escaped my sight with ease into the shadows and darkness. After a few minutes with no other signs I decided to return home to get his favorite food and treats. Just as I returned with the treats a train passed by on the tracks just 30 ft from where I saw Cheeto. The racket was immense from that distance the horn, screeching of the breaks and the clanking of the tracks. After the train left even with his favorite treats and my calls I found nothing and eventually feeling exhausted, my feet and legs in pain and realizing the train had probably scared him into hiding I went home defeated. The next morning I returned to find a can of his favorite wet food about a third of the way gone and some small holes dug nearby. These signs returned some hope to me as Cheeto never ate more than a very small amount of wet food and for some reason had like digging holes in our back yard. This was evidence to me that he had not moved far away.

Days passed with no sign off life, I put up flyers and received some calls but they were all false alarms. Eventually, I spoke to all the folks who lived on the lane and purchased a trail camera to see if I could catch him on it. An older couple, who also loved cats, allowed me to set the camera up on their property. That first night I caught nothing due to setting up the trail camera to high in the tree so I repositioned the camera at ground level with food and treats right in front of it. For the first few days all I captured was racoons, other cats and myself checking the area. In the meantime I continued to hand out flyers to everyone I saw walking around. All of my neighbors and passerby's were kind and wished me luck finding my lost cat. By this point I felt very drained and my families hopes began to wane.

A Sign of Hope and a Harbinger of Doom

It was Wednesday and we had lost Cheeto on Saturday and by this point I had two trail cameras setup trying catch a glimpse of his location but the effort had been futile. I continued to search whenever I had free time from work. When my son came home from his overnight shift he would drive around looking. We had setup a ring camera in our backyard and opened both our gates to make it inviting for Cheeto's return. Besides a small rodent and one of the neighbors cats our Ring camera didn't show any evidence of Cheeto. The trail cameras showed some other cats and racoons but still no Cheeto.

Wednesday morning I drove down to get the SD card out of the camera and search around a bit before the sun came out. All the bait food I put out was gone but I was pretty sure all I would find on the video was racoons. After returning home I began reviewing the thumbnails of the videos from the SD card on my laptop and the first several were all racoons. Then I noticed something dreadful at about 3:30 AM there was a pack of coyotes caught on camera.

The Killer of Cats

At this point I had only reviewed the thumbnails from the SD card and I started the task of reviewing each of the 10 second clips. The first several videos were of either myself searching or racoons. In between visits by racoons I found a video that contained this image of Cheeto.

Cheeto on one of my trail cams

After a brief moment of celebration that I had proof of life the dread set in. Was he eaten by the coyotes that night? Frantically I searched through the videos to see how far apart the timestamps were. Two and half hours, was that enough time for him to have gone back to his hiding place?

I decided to double down on my search effort and spent the following night camped out in my car cautiously watching for the return of the coyotes so I could run them off or my cat so I could try to catch him. The night was near freezing and a light fog filled the air. When I walked around from time to time the beam from my headlamp shown through the fog only about 20 ft. My mind couldn't help but wonder to the potential horrors of the previous night. Did my gentle cat die in the jaws of a vicious Coyote? I recalled how the neurological damage caused by FIP had reduced his balance, ability to jump and climb.

The racoons slid down the large pine trees out of my sight but I could hear them near the camera in the shadows. The hours of darkness passed and at around 5 AM I began to get tired enough that I set the alarm on my clock for 10 minutes and shut my eyes. When I woke up I noticed an orange object peeking out from behind a bush. Trying to shake the sleepiness from my mind I snapped a picture and zoomed in and it was just a leaf.

People were starting to go to work at this point and I stayed around for another hour and all I heard was people getting into their vehicles heading off for the day. Twilight crept over the horizon and I decided to swap the SD card and head home to review the videos. When I got home I finally realized how cold I was. I hadn't started my car to warm myself so that I didn't wake up the people sleeping on the lane. After reviewing the videos and only seeing racoons I went to bed exhausted and depressed.

The previous day I had notified my manager that I was taking a long weekend to search for my cat. She was very compassionate to let me take time off on such short notice and in the middle of an important project. The following few days I continued my search but with very little sign of Cheeto. All three of the families that lived at the end of the lane allowed me to look through their back yards and luckily I found no signs of a struggle with the coyote. The older couple even let me go into their crawl space when I heard some meowing near the corner of the house. No luck at all beside a few very light fearful meows. Was it Cheeto or had the fatigue made me hallucinate the sounds? There was some hope in the backyards as they were full of gardens, shrubs and sheds. Plenty of good hiding spots for a cat to have escaped the coyotes I thought.

An Unexpected Hero

Early Saturday morning after going to sleep around 7 AM my wife woke me up yelling Cheeto is out back on the ring camera. I launched out of bed delirious but determined to let him in but he was nowhere to be found by the time I got to the door. After searching around the house for some time, I finally got around to reviewing the Ring camera videos and noticed that a cat from a few houses down that I recognized had come through the yard. For some time I had gone on walks with cat treats in my pocket and I had regularly offered her some. A few minutes after she came through a cat that looked like it might have been Cheeto cautiously walked up to the bowls we had left out and ate a few bites before slinking off. However, I didn't think it looked like Cheeto but my wife and son did.

The Hero

Was this Cheeto?

Regardless whether I thought it was Cheeto or not I spent the day searching and again setup shop in the quiet lane for a late night stakeout while my wife manned the Ring camera in the backyard. Things were very quiet except for a couple of chit chat session with the folks that lived on the lane.

Then a phone call from my wife, "Our baby is home!". Quickly I drove home excited and relieved. There staring at me when I walked in was my little buddy Cheeto, besides some sap on his fur, he was in good shape and happy. Finally I asked my wife about what happened and she said the neighbors cat had walked back through the yard followed behind, briefly after, by Cheeto. The cat I had brought treats too, like some sort of cat treat flavored version of the ice cream man, while I walked at night had brought Cheeto home.  Cheeto, in fact, was begging to go back out presumably to hang out with his new friend and the unexpected hero that brought him home. I am lucky to be able to say that Cheetos tale is not over!

Here is how he fell asleep that night with his friend Mr. Smee.

A not so spicy Cheeto