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How to Cope with a Lost Cat: Our Story Losing Lincoln (Part One)
↠ DAY FOUR: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 ↞
“I’ll wait for the fur,” our tracker Carmen had said after she and our infrared drone operator Steve had pulled up at the farm.
This was the day that Andy and I had waited to arrive: This was the day Professional Pet Trackers would join our search for our beloved cat, Lincoln.
They wasted no time getting out of their SUV, greeting me, and confirming information on our cat Lincoln’s escape. Carmen was direct, down to business, and bold, which I greatly appreciated not only because she exuded confidence, but she also did not wallow in my self-pity—and let’s be honest, I had exceeded in that department. Steve was more reserved and relaxed, and he listened as I answered Carmen’s questions. Both smiled and laughed often while watching their black lab Finley who had bounded from their vehicle with his pink tongue hanging from his mouth. He seemed innately aware of our situation and eager to start his scent search.
“What have you done so far?” Carmen asked me, and as I went over all the steps we had taken, she nodded as if mentally checking items off a list.
“But we have barely told anyone,” I admitted, feeling ashamed. “We have been so focused that we have barely handed out fliers to people.”
Carmen looked confused. “What people?!” she exclaimed, moving her arms around her to represent the acres of farmland, woodland, and general rural-ness. “Lincoln is here. You don’t need to talk to people. He’s here.”
While I appreciated her confidence, I confess I did not believe as I stood before her, so much so that I had a quick mental argument on whether I should stop posting Lincoln’s lost flier online based off of the word of someone I met a mere five minutes ago. If I stopped and if he kept walking—I did not even want to imagine. In the best case scenario, he was still at the farm, but there was no way to control him or the environment so a multitude of things could happen or scare him away. I say this because while Carmen told me precisely what I wanted to hear—and what she knew based on her expertise—in my heart I needed to know, too, before I called off my cherished online search party.
“Oh! For today—we have fur … coming,” I told her because while I spoke, Andy was on the way to deliver Lincoln’s fur after I had a meltdown over what scent item we could offer our trackers. See, when Lincoln first went missing, Andy and I brought essentially all of his belongings—two beds with two blankets, a litter box, and a favorite toy. But we made errors with all: We wafted Linc’s toy in the air, hoping the familiar sound would get his attention; and when it did not, we put it in my car. The litter box was not recommended for many reasons, including tracking due to the strong ammonia smell cancelling the scent. And the two beds with two blankets would have been good had they not also been sitting in my hot car for four days, and heat deteriorates scent.
“We have his scratchpad!” I told Andy, and I was thrilled to remember this because cats release endorphins when they scratch so the pad could equate to a nice scent … but in our efforts to be prepared for the trackers, we made the same mistake with the scratch pad, and that was bringing it too early then having nowhere to store it. It could not go in our hot car due to heat, in the garage due to my uncle’s cigarette smoke, or even outside due to the wafted scent creating a false “trail” for our K9.
This is when I had a meltdown because I realized all of Linc’s scent items were ruined, and without a scent item, our trackers could not find our son … that is until Andy thought of Lincoln’s brush with his fur still inside the bristles.
Honest to everything, the realization that we had his fur felt grander than winning the Mega Millions.
Carmen was thrilled about the fur news, too, so when Andy arrived with our winning ticket, she hesitated none.
“Who does Lincoln love more?” she asked with fur in hand.
“L.” Andy’s answer was immediate because despite his patience and calm, Lincoln was leery of males from the start, so he favors me—his only female.
“Okay. L, you’re with the fur and me and Finley on the ground. Andy, you’re with Steve in the air.” With that, we went our separate ways, and because I do not know what Steve and Andy did, here is this part of our story from Andy …
Steve and I set off to find a suitable open area for flying the drone. Steve got set up quickly, placing a huge hard case on the ground. Opening the case, a large screen appeared that allowed both of us a view of what the drone would see. The screen was serious and looked like it was a pilot display out of Top Gun. Next to the case was a tripod (which I just told L as she is questioning me—the tripod should have been called Atlas because it was strong enough to hold up the weight of the world), and on the tripod was the drone’s remote controls, which were also, quite frankly, impressive.
The drone was placed on the ground, and within a few seconds, it was hovering six feet in front of us while also looking at us. It was massive—the size of a coffee table with propellers spinning at what seemed like 500 revs per minute. The grass was flattened due to the downdraft.
“It’s quite intimidating when it’s this close, isn’t it?” I questioned over the buzz of the propeller blades.
Steve agreed before sending it nearly 200 feet in the air in what seemed like an instant and there it stayed, perfectly still. Now if you know me, you’ll know I love anything mechanical, motorized, and technical, and this drone ticked all three. I was blown away by the stability of the image. Steve told me it was due to the gyros (not the kebabs) inside the drone, and the image quality was incredible.
I watched as Steve switched from standard to infrared and back again, then I noticed the screen on the controls giving the drone’s position on a map, its altitude, air speed, yaw (a type of rotation), pitch and roll angles, as well as a number of other parameters.
Steve spoke to me about how Carmen and Finley would set up a perimeter based on where Finley picked up Lincoln’s scent. Then, using the drone, Steve would search that area in a grid pattern.
Once Carmen had texted Steve with a perimeter, we watched the map as Steve flew the drone over the woods where we thought Lincoln might have been. Unfortunately, with the ambient temperature being relatively high and the sun shining, there were a few hot spots that caught our attention. Some of these turned out to be nothing, but other hot white lumps we saw were the farms cows. This is what Nick had noticed at night—there were not too many animals in or around the woods and certainly not Lincy.
A fresh battery was put in the drone, and we were back in the air. This time, we were carefully looking over every square foot in a grid pattern, but we again came up short with no sightings of Lincy. Steve didn’t seem to worry—his experience told him that cats don’t go far when they go missing. More often than not—and with Finley’s help—we’d locate where Lincy was hiding.
After this, I felt less worried. Establishing a perimeter lifted a weight off of my shoulders because I was able to know that Lincy wasn’t lost in an unknown large area. We were now searching a small area. In fact, we’d got the area so small that you could walk around it in ten minutes.
I felt it would be a matter of time before L and I would see Lincy on a trail camera and then trap him, but I guess that’s my overly positive attitude in action.
For more on how the perimeter was established, here’s what L and Carmen were up to …
Occasionally, I would hear the drone as I walked Carmen and Finley to the spot Linc bolted.
Once there, the lack lab barely put his nose inside of the open bag before he focused on a direction, and what I saw as I followed filled me with awe and hope.
Without coaxing or encouraging, Finley followed the exact path Lincoln had when he escaped. Meanwhile, Carmen followed quickly, ensuring she did not restrain Finley. As she shadowed, she videoed and pictured her K9’s actions to aid our memory, and she marked areas of heavy scent with camera icons on an online map shared with us—camera icons because that represented locations to mount trail cameras. I was (and still am) floored at all she was able to accomplish effortlessly.
By now, Finley was at the hay shed, seeming intent to get inside but, met with a closed gate, he picked up his pace down the same side of the shed Lincoln ran.
Suddenly, Finley moved to the right—an area Andy and I had not considered as we were confident Linc was lost in the woods. What was interesting, though, was that Finley paused, then return to the shed, and there, he smelled under the rear edge—an area a cat could and would easily squeeze into to flee. With positive words, Carmen made her mark on the map, and I could tell they had an understanding: Finley trusted Carmen to recognize when he found a heavy scent, and she trusted him to continue tracking.
Moving faster now, Finley was heading toward open farmland as Carmen and I jogged to keep up. That is when his nose went to two abandoned vehicles that—as Carmen poetically and perfectly described—had “become one with the earth.” Even more eager, Finley smelled the front of a Ford Bronco before moving to the passenger’s side, then wrapping around it to the rear. Once there, he became intent on the smell, stretching under the car to further sniff. Carmen would later describe her K9 to Andy as he was “nose down and ass up,” which was most accurate in how enthusiastic Finley was.
Yet, here is what is amazing about a properly trained scent K9: Finley is taught not to run, chase, or threaten what he is tracking because the goal is never to scare off the target.
The abandoned vehicles were a great example of control: The moment Finley indicated the scent was strong, Carmen marked the spot, told him to continue, and Finley did.
Focused on the scent, Finley walked across a cow pasture and surprised me by not even glancing at our antique motorhome. Because Andy and I went to the farm frequently to restore the retro relic, we had wondered if our scent could lure Lincoln, but we were wrong. Finley showed no hesitation and instead walked straight into a chicken house.
Zooming to the right, he followed the side of the building all the way to the back, and suddenly I could see Lincoln in Finley as Finley moved back and forth—as if trapped and trying to determine the next move, and this may be because the back of the chicken house does not have an escape. Lincoln must have realized this, too, because Finley swung around and followed the same path back out.
Encouraging Finley to continue straight, I followed as the two of them went into the hay field. At this point, my heart was racing because the hay field has no shelter so it would leave Lincoln open to predators. More importantly, the hay field is next to a road where people race at high speeds, rarely slowing for anything. I tried to keep from crying imagining Lincoln—unsure, scared, and nervous—making it this far because if he did, the chance that he would leave the farm, and we could not find him was great. Unexpectedly, Finley halted and sat.
“This is what he does when he has no scent,” Carmen told me, “so I am putting Xs in areas were Lincoln has not been.”
If she had been looking at me, she would have seen me fill with relief. Lincoln has not been here. Lincoln has not been here, I echoed mentally. Thank you, thank you. Lincoln has not been here.
It was as if Carmen read my mind. “You have to remember,” she said gently but directly. “Cats can walk—the scent that Finley tracks today can change because Lincoln may walk somewhere else when we leave.”
Basically, scents are trails of the past, and my heart yearned for the present.
Still, “present” was not the name of this operation. As crazy as it seems, Carmen and Finley were not hired to find Lincoln. Instead, they were hired to find Lincoln’s scent, and in doing so, they could provide support.
Lincoln had not left farm property, which told me he was not interested in exploring. There was a clear path where he had walked—where he had even retraced his steps, following the same route. And within that path, there were three heavy scent spots and one “common” area where a view of Lincoln would be probable.
“Carmen, can I show you and Finley two of what I think are Lincoln’s hairs in barbed wire passing where Lincoln ran?”
“Why.” She was blunt in a way that did not make this a question.
“Because it could be Lincoln’s hair, and that would mean he may be in the woods.”
“No,” she said, and her answer was so final that I must have made a confused or hurt expression … until she explained why …
Essentially, the scent Finley picked up was the strongest scent of Lincoln. Whether the hairs were Linc’s did not matter because that was an old scent—like when Lincoln first bolted three days earlier … but he returned and walked the path Finley smelled.
Plus, Carmen told me she did not want to harm her relationship with her K9. Making him redo an area he knew was not right would make him question her and then question himself because he wanted to please Carmen, so he would basically push himself to finding something … but that something was not his first instinct, and that’s what Carmen told me we needed to trust.
And I did. Andy did, too, as he also was awed when I told him about our tracking day and showed him the videos of Finley.
“Finley’s the real hero today, isn’t he?” he asked, and he was right.
For reward, Finley got to fetch a massive stick (more a tree limb) and jump into the pond. He came back soaked and panting happily.
“Go home,” Carmen told us as the three of them got back into their SUV. “Go home. Shower. Eat. Sleep in your bed. It’s always when you leave they come out.”
But I could not go—I could not leave Lincoln in a place he had never been. Finley’s ability made us feel empowered and energized in our efforts, and I needed to stay. I think Andy felt the same way.
“We will listen and do everything you taught us and told. We hired you for your expertise, and we are going to follow it exact,” I promised, “but I cannot go home. That’s the one thing I cannot do.”
“Okay, then,” she told me. “Get out of the woods. Lincoln’s not there—he may have been there, but he’s not there anymore.”
With that, we said our goodbyes, and I admit, I started to cry when they left—not because I felt hopeless in our search for Lincoln, but because I felt like I did not have enough time with genuine friends and now they were gone.
“Did they find your baby?” my uncle questioned as he drove up in his pickup truck. The use of the word “baby” made me feel my uncle had compassion to our situation.
“No, but that wasn’t why they were here,” I told him, explaining what had happened and the purpose. From a different type of hunter to another hunter, he of all people would appreciate trackers, scent trails, and patience.
“How much did the tracker cost?” my uncle asked. When I answered, his response was quick. “You could buy twenty cats!” he hissed at me.
“And you know what the crazy part is?” I posed, maintaining eye contact. “This one was free.”
He shook his head because my logic was not his logic, and I shook mine for the same reason, only the opposite.
“Come on,” Andy said, taking my hand and lightly tugging me. “We have work to do.”
So we moved our campsite closer but a few yards from the back of the hay shed.
Then, we checked and repositioned our trail cameras. With Carmen’s guidance, we focused on the top four spots: We kept our camera at the front of the hay shed where Lincoln ran past, but we moved our cameras to focus on the vehicles Finley picked up a heavy scent, the chicken house Finley raced through, and the “common area” which was the family cemetery that we affectionately called the “graveyard.”
After that, we moved only one button inside the hay shed near his water and food. We chose a button that would have meaning but not require an action, and that button was “Lincoln.”
If we had chosen “Mummy” or “Dad” and if Lincoln had activated one or both—it was upsetting to imagine him purposefully requesting us … and us possibly not coming. It was the same with “I love you”—to request that means being cuddled, kissed, hugged, petted, and itched. If that button was activated and the action not there, Lincoln would learn that the button was meaningless when in fact, it holds the most meaning.
* * * * *
After a full day of focusing on actions Carmen and Steve had recommended to find Lincoln, we still did not finish, but we took Carmen’s advice and briefly went home to drop items off, take our first warm shower, and eat our first real meal since Linc’s disappearance.
I ordered a broccoli and cheddar bread bowl from a restaurant, knowing both the overload of carbs and soup would be the ultimate comfort food. Andy ordered a steak sandwich, feeling it would be both yummy and hearty. We even snuck in pastries for the following morning.
Hot food in hand, we found our seats and exhaled so loud those around us peered over. Yet, our eyes were locked on one another as we froze, soaking up the reprieve.
“This feels like the first time I’ve breathed for days—that we’ve sat still,” Andy said, and we both felt giddy so we laughed.
“I cannot wait to eat!” I admitted, not remember having that much desire for a bite.
Minutes stretched close to 8:00 p.m. as Andy had demolished his sandwich, and I had scarfed down half my bread bowl when he decided to check our trail cameras.
I can still hear the emotion, excitement, and energy in his voice when he exclaimed, “L! IT’S A CAT! IT’S A CAT! IT’S A FUCKING CAT!” and the way his hands were shaking when he passed me his phone.
I played the video …
A cat was sitting barely inside the hay shed. It moved ever so slightly, looking right then left, its eyes flashing when turning towards our trail camera. Slowly—creeping—the cat turned and walked toward the right … then the video ended.
It felt like we had waited a lifetime for this moment—that all we had ever wanted and dreamed appeared, that our upmost desire was filmed on our camera.
“We need to go!” I shouted to Andy, standing with my bread bowl in hand, ready to leave without a bag or box.
“No,” Andy whispered. “We need to eat. Even if we were there, there is nothing we can do.”
Sure, he had a point—if Lincoln had not come to us now, he would not come to us when we purposefully approached him. Not only that, but the scare could move him further away, and if that happened, we could lose him. The risk was too high.
So we sat at our little table, holding one another’s hands … and we cried.
Then we sent Carmen the video, saying we were not sure if it was Lincoln, but it was possible.
“If it was a different cat, I would expect different behaviors,” she typed back. “This cat was not super confident from what I could see watching the video, and I would think if it was an outdoor cat or one that has been there, he would have hit every single camera—he would already be conditioned to the area and consider it his, thus out and about way more. Now, if there is another lost indoor cat in the area, it could be that one, but I doubt there are any other lost indoor-only cats hanging out at that farm.”
“It has to be Lincoln!” Andy whispered, and his voice cracked … but Andy is the overwhelming optimist, and it is not that I am a pessimist, but I am a realist …
“There are two cats at the farm,” my uncle had said. “Just show up. Every now and again, more come.”
“Cats love to go into the hay shed,” my aunt had said at the start of our search.
I suddenly remembered the cat feces I had found while searching the hay shed for Lincoln on Day One—it was in the very back on top of one of the hay bales. It was old, possibly there for weeks, and I had made a mental note not to get excited about it in the future in case I came days later during another search and forgot. I had even told Andy to make sure I did not forget.
Then there was Andy himself who had seen a cat when we had been at the farm in the past.
“But what color was it?!” I asked and re-asked as our time stretched to find Lincoln.
“Black—I think,” he would say again and again. “It was black with a white chest.”
This videoed cat did look black … but it was also night …
Plus, despite knowing the farm had frequent or occasional cats, in my lifetime of going there, I had never seen one. I even asked my sister.
“No,” she said. “I never once saw a cat.”
Yet, if it was Lincoln, we would want to trap him … but there were risks in placing a trap too soon, in trapping a different cat, or in Lincoln seeing another cat trapped.
After all, our top priority was simply to determine if Lincoln was still in the area, then get an unmistakable positive identify of Lincoln through the cameras before we even considered trapping.
This and more raced through my head as we played and replayed the video. But as fast as we saw the clip, then forced our camera to take a picture, the cat was already gone.
↠ DAY FIVE: THURSDAY, MARCH 12 ↞
“DAMN IT!” Andy yelled before throwing himself into the driver’s seat, and then there was an ever-so-slight hesitation before he exploded. “FUCK!” he yelled, punching the steering wheel. “FUCKFUCKFUUUCK!”
The horn sounded.
He had only hit his head getting inside, but pent up anger, hopelessness, frustration, defeat, heartbreak, panic—each emotion turned into a bomb exploding in the car as his fists punched the steering wheel repeatedly.
As I watched, I became scared—not scared of Andy or his outburst, but scared because his outburst was uncharacteristic of him. I was frightened his pent up emotions, pressure, tension, and fear would not escape and instead remain trapped inside, so I sat, silent and unmoving while he cussed and yelled and punched. He needed a release, and I was not going to hinder that.
Plus, we had a rule of being together that we live by: Both people cannot lose it at the same time. One person needs to be strong when the other feels weak. This was his turn—his right—to have weakness.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that,” and even though I told him it was okay, even though I leaned into him while he calmed, I knew he had more to release but there was no way I could help.
* * * * *
I distinctly remember the first moments I heard myself laugh again …
I laughed with Carmen many times, forgetting the real reason she was with us and instead feeling as if we had been friends for years. I also laughed the morning of Day Five when I woke and checked our trail cameras …
“In the midst of this, these trail cameras are hilarious,” I texted my family, sharing pictures of the cows who apparently prized themselves on being top farm moo-nitors. My family also found the girls hilarious, so I shared the camera viewing ability with them.
Speaking of my family, my sister donated additional cameras to support our search.
That made our camera count come to seven—and the reality of that is immense because most people do not have or are unable to get even one camera in the search for their lost pets.
Importantly, too, her kindness made me realize that I had not called my family with any updates on our son. I felt deeply guilty over that, primarily because my parents were caring for our other cat Lysander, and that encompassed them taking Ly to their house when Lincoln escaped, buying Ly litter and food, feeding him dry food and wet food each day, loving him, playing with him, and more.
“It’s fine,” my mother told me when I apologized for not checking in regularly to see how Ly was. “Your mind has been understandably occupied, and Ly is okay. The first night was hard for him, but now he has settled and is doing much better.”
I also felt guilty because my father had helped yesterday by posting fliers near a gas station, placing them inside of people’s mailboxes, and handing them to people in conversation.
“The best news of all—the best news!—was that I spoke to a woman who lives on the other side of the woods, and she says strays find a way to her all the time. She said she feeds all the strays that come, and she would keep an eye out for Lincoln!”
He told me this in person, and he was bubbling with happiness … but I had barely hugged him—I do not even know if I said, “Thank you”—before I sort of ushered him off the farm and greeted the trackers when they arrived.
“Deeply guilty” did not contain how sorry I felt.
And yet, I could not pause to even process those feelings because the top feeling I was processing was hope.
This came when I remembered my cousin Josh had put a trail camera behind the hay shed.
Five days after Lincoln had disappeared, I remembered (and Andy still had forgotten) our borrowed camera, and this goes to show how traumatizing Lincoln’s disappearance was for both us.
Over the course of five days, Day Two was the only day of note, and here is what was captured: We saw Nick walk by with his night vision goggles …
Then, twenty-five minutes later, we saw a cat creep into the area …
Forty-six minutes later, we saw Nick approach again.
Andy was ecstatic and celebrating that the cat was Lincoln, but I was hesitant and did not know how to handle being given what I wanted most.
“Are you sure? Are you sure?” I kept repeating, but the more excited he got, the more lost I felt because if the cat was not Lincoln—I could not bear the heartbreak he would face.
Yet, Andy was confident as he took my computer from me and zoomed in on the feline, eager to prove to his truth.
And there stood a not-confident tabby cat with a white chin, large build, and black-tipped tail. There stood Lincoln.
It was our first undeniable sighting, and it gave us the conviction that the cat in all trail camera pictures was Lincoln. We nearly dropped the phone in our haste to text Carmen. Her response was precisely what we wanted to hear:
“Okay—let’s trap …”
Together, we had done it. We had found Lincoln, and now it was time to trap him.
↠ SEEK THE FULL STORY ↞
How to Catch a Lost Cat: Our Story Rescuing Lincoln (Part Three)
