Bender breaks his toy.

And you wonder why we're looking for him?

Even the little ones are helping.

The calls continue to come in. Today I received a call from a woman who lives in Morgan Creek, who thinks she has seen Bender in her backyard twice in the last few nights, although the cat she saw was wearing a different color collar. On the small chance that someone has changed his collar, or put a new one on him, I asked her to detain this cat briefly next time she sees him so I can drop by and take a look. I also received three calls yesterday, on Christmas Day, and two on Christmas Eve, most about "close but not quite" cats, one who looked like mine but was named "Spidey," and one who definitely wasn't mine. I also received this note this morning from a little neighbor child - I went to check it out, and, well, at least it was a cat. :)

What we've done.

Having never lost a cat before, this was quite a new experience for us. We started with just a few signs posted in our immediate neighborhood, but when Bender wasn't home in a couple of days, we moved to widespread posting of laminated flyers, mailings of "lost pet" postcards, and large signs at local intersections - we even found a "telephone calling service" which calls local homes and leaves an automated message (lost pets are apparently a big industry). We've registered him with every lost pet service I can find on the web, and we've been visiting and checking with the shelters and other animal people regularly. We've posted ads in the Sacramento Bee and Craiglist, and begged real estate agents to open up nearby empty houses. We've run down every tip and every sighting, knocked on doors, and talked to almost a hundred people. We've searched the creek and the fields, climbed a few fences, and even trespassed a few times. Still nothing. While we haven't yet found Bender, we've discovered a huge community of people who love their animals and who have gone well out of their way to help me find him - to all of you, I am grateful. Please keep looking - he's out there somewhere!