The Epic Saga of Simon Says

There is a Facebook group called Lost and Found Cats in HRM and Nova Scotia.  As the name would imply, it assists in returning missing cats to their owners by networking people in the various communities and supplying a central focal point to post pictures and descriptions of troubled animals.

When my friend Andrea (recently spotted here) shared a post about a purebred Siamese needing a home in late October 2012, I couldn't believe someone would want to give away such a beautiful and exotic animal. It turns out, his owner had a new boyfriend who was moving in with this new dog, and this stunning feline had essentially been locked out and was taking shelter in a neighbour's backyard.

We named him Simon and quickly fell in love with his quirky personality and crooked eyes. He was loud and obnoxious, as Siamese tend to be, so he quickly earned the title Simon Says. He joined Pickles and Montgomery in the tiny little house and staked his claim with the other two: a little forcefully at first, but then everyone just became content with ignoring each other.

Less than a week into Simon's adoption, disaster struck. The back door opened, and Simon bolted. The other cats never left the backyard, but Simon was used to running free on his own terms. He high-tailed it up our street, under a neighbour's deck, out the other side and under a fence. By the time we got around the fence, he was gone.

We were heartbroken. We searched for hours. We resorted back to the Lost and Found Facebook page, we accepted tips and ideas for finding Simon, and we drove and walked endlessly around the neighbourhood, putting up posters and calling out for our beautiful boy. We had helped locate the owners of a cat that had been missing for three months just weeks earlier, so I dared not give up hope. It was late October, though, it was getting cold, and Simon didn't know the neighbourhood or our voices

Then, five days later, I got a call from a lady two blocks away. She said she had been out for a cigarette late the night before and had seen a small Siamese cat trotting up her road. She hadn't wanted to call because it was late, but I assured her that we would come talk to her after work. I met and spoke with her and she showed me where she had seen the cat. She promised to call if she saw him again, no matter what time of day, and I spent the evening searching... to no avail.

That night, about 11:3o, she called again.

I'm not going to lie: I thought she was a bit wacky. What were the chances this was my cat? Halifax has a stray cat problem in the first place, and there were a ton of them in the area. In the dark, Simon looked white, and relatively unidentifiable. I had to go look, though, just in case. We piled in the car and headed back to the area.

We had actually given up and were driving back to the main road to go home when I saw him. I didn't know it was him: he was sitting on the railing of someone's step and I saw him there and took the flashlight to get closer. When he turned and looked at me, I freaked out: I couldn't even speak. I just waved my arms like a mad woman until the others realized what had happened and came over with the cat carrier.

Simon apparently had enjoyed his freedom. He bolted again, but this time we were able to follow until he cornered himself by slipping through a crack in the wall of someone's shed. While I guarded the hole, the shed's owner was woken up and brought outside to unlock the door. The key didn't work. The door got ripped off its hinges.

I broke down crying when Simon was placed back in the cat carrier and handed to me. 

All this for a cat we had known for 3 days.

 Simon came home with a scratch on his nose and an exaggerated attitude. While Montgomery put him right back in his place, Pickles was not willing to be so aggressive. Simon bullied her to the point where she would not come out of the bedroom, and even used the bathtub because she was scared to go to the litterbox. Once he realized he had this power over her, it only got worse, and nothing we tried would snap him out of it.
On November 17, two weeks after he returned home, I called the adoption agent to come take him back. It was incredibly hard. I had fallen head over heels for the little guy with the annoying voice and the big personality. But it was unfair to Pickles, who had lived there first and not caused a problem in her life.
Simon was fostered out to a lady who owned no other cats. He got along with her dog and she ended up keeping him permanently. I am happy to know that he has found a loving and stress-free environment, and I am still able to contact the adoption agent any time I want for updates on his well-being.

Simon Says: Have a happy ending.