How to Lasso a Cat in 27 Easy Steps

Oh how my husband and I love to brag about Brody - our well behaved and well trained cat. Yes we announce at dinner parties "Our darling Brody is the perfect cat! She goes outside but has never even attempted to leave the inside of the fence in 2 years!" Oh how we yammer on about our perfect cat who enjoys all the elements of nature in our backyard with no risk of getting lost or harmed! Why she sleeps in the sun for hours on our deck and curls up on the patio furniture! She loves to chase bugs in the garden and doesn't know any world exists outside our 7 foot privacy fence. When we really want people to envy us we brag how she comes indoors through the doggie door when we call her inside. Always a showstopper.
Yes our Brody has never left the yard in 2 years...until the other night when an unruly dog (yet to come forward and admit the crime) dug a hole behind the hostas that created a 2 foot opening under the fence. A hole large enough for a cat to easily step through to the outside world. I was walking Fiona and Caelan home around 8:00 at night when I see a cute kitty in my reclusive neighbors landscaping. Why isn't that cat cute - it looks just like Brody I say to myself... Holy crap! It is Brody! She's out of the yard!
I quickly run inside and rouse my husband who is semi-conscious after taking a muscle relaxer for his strained back. We check the backyard quickly and see the aforementioned hole and 3 setters stand around us like "holy smokes -how the heck did that get there?" Fiona seems particularly guilty looking with her head low but there is no time to interrogate, we must get the cat back to safety.
The funny thing is I have always been a proponent of people letting their cats outdoors if they choose to. I know it's a personal choice and I know the risks. Our older cat Henri has been allowed outdoors for 13 years and she's lived in 4 states and 7 different houses. She has never been injured and never strayed far from home base. She is miserable if she cannot be out in nature - it's part of her. I also know I am very lucky she hasn't been injured or lost. Brody was our happy medium - all the joy of being outside with no risk of leaving the safe confines of our yard. Sully our kitten is so busy terrorizing the inside of the house and it's occupants he doesn't seem to notice the outdoors - we'll keep it that was as long as possible.
But Brody being out of our yard put me in a state of panic. I worried she'd be confused, she'd be scared. What if she wandered away and never came back? My husband and I for the next 3 hours pleaded, sang kitty songs, shook treat bags and used reverse psychology to try to get her out of my neighbor's yard. None of it worked. At one particularly desperate moment we brought our cat Henri outside, put her down on the driveway and asked her to go and bring Brody home. We nudged her and said "Go on girl! Get your sister!" I mean it always works in the movies and old Lassie TV shows so why not? Henri's response was to look at us with scorn for taking her out of her cat bed and start grooming herself - all while never leaving the driveway. I think it was the feline equivalent of flipping us off.
Brody skulked around the recluse neighbor's landscaping and eventually wedged herself through a 5 inch gate opening in his fence and trapped herself in his backyard. This presented additional rescue problems as A.) the crazy recluse next door padlocks his gates and being a recluse will not answer his door B.) My cat cannot remember the 5 inch opening she entered into the yard from. So for an hour she paces the yard like a caged tiger trying to figure out how to get out. We know she can easily jump the fence, she is a cat after all. But remember...our well trained cat does not jump fences. Remember us? The braggers who like to gloat our cat can't leave a fenced yard. It's all fantastic until your cat really needs to leave a fenced yard!
Much comedy prevails as my husband jumps the fence, retrieves the cat and hands her over the fence to me. Crisis averted right? Yup...until your drugged husband falls coming back over the fence and rips his shorts and curses loudly causing the cat you are rescuing to claw you and leap from your arms in fear. Irony follows as your cat finds that same damn 5 inch opening she couldn't find from inside the fence and enters the yard again. Cat 1 - Stupid Cat Guardians - 0.
My husband has admitted defeat at this point and starts reverting to 1940's lingo in his delirium . "She'll come home when she wants her meal ticket punched!" "She knows where her bread is buttered!" "You can lead a cat to water, but you can't make them scale a fence." I realize at this point he is of no help and needs to go to bed.
My husband sent inside and midnight approaching I take a moment to appreciate the beautiful night and the peacefulness of my neighborhood in the late summer moonlight. Why have I never noticed it before? I sit opposite of Brody on the grass - the fence between us, she rubs her head against my hand through the metal of the chain link and I laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Life is somewhat of a screwball comedy, isn't it? I had just watched Katherine Hepburn in "Bringing Up Baby" the night before and marveled at how witty it was, her and Cary Grant chasing a lost leopard through Connecticut. Then I had a thought... if Kate Hepburn can lasso a leopard why can't I lasso a domestic short hair? I went inside and grabbed a slip lead off the dog's leash rack and a large canvas bag from the garage I use for groceries. Determined I went back to the fence line with a renewed sense of commitment. I left a large loop open on the leash and threw it towards Brody a few times. Nothing. I draped the large bag over the fence and asked her to jump in...also didn't work. Channelling my inner Kate I threw the lead over again and actually circled Brody's shoulders, slowly I pulled the lead until it tightened around her. I draped the giant bag over the fence onto the ground and pulled her into it with the lead. I had a cat in a bag!I slowly pulled the bag over the fence until I had my Brody. It was so late and dark outside nobody could witness my marvelous feat, but then again, how crazy must I have looked lassoing a cat at midnight into a "Go Green!" canvas grocery bag?
The next morning I did some creative landscaping to fill in the hole and lined it with river rocks to prohibit future escapes. Next time I'll skip all the animal know-how and head right to Turner Movie Classics for the answers.