Olive who is also known as “The Pretty Kitty.”

I was talking to my dear friend on the phone in my backyard. I heard the door to the casita smash shut with a gust of wind. When I came back inside the house, I walked past the front door on the way to our bedroom.

I noticed that not only the front door was open, the screen door was open too. My heart stopped.

I’ve been told by neighbors when we moved here to keep my cat inside. That’s because of coyotes, bobcats, javelina, owls, snakes and huge hawks. My cat would last an hour, they said.

Shaking, I yelled at my husband. “You left the front door open!”

He insisted he was innocent. But I immediately jumped to blame him, because I knew I didn’t.

I got Olive’s favorite treat out, Lil’ Soup by Friskies.

“Kitty soup!” I yelled and repeated. She always comes running and answers “Meow oop.”

Nothing.

We checked under beds. Then went outside to call “Here kitty, kitty, kitty!”

I was crying. I haven’t been so worried since I lost my last cat who got outside at age 17 at our old house. The neighbor’s dog jumped their wall and killed my cat Sherman who was lounging in the driveway of the empty house next door to them.

Calling and callling, getting more and more frantic, I realized Olive went out our front courtyard and would turn right towards the wash, rather than head to the street. At the side of the house, with both of us calling, she appeared.

She nonchalantly sniffed the gravel, looked at me, then my husband — and ran for her dear life into our courtyard and waited for us to open the front door.

I don’t think she’s going out again soon. She spent the next 12 hours hiding under our bed. She must have smelled something that was threatening to her.

If you have pets, what close calls have you had with them?

This is Olive when I found her trapped inside our SUV. I wrote about her car misadventures HERE.