The female, family cat whose name is Ronnie somehow became trapped in a large space behind a plasterboard wall. It’s not clear what had gone on to make that huge space and it is not clear why Ronnie found herself in that space. But it is clear that the couple who are Ronnie’s caregivers decided to hack open a hole in the stud wall with a claw hammer to free Ronnie. I’ve just discovered that Ronnie entered the void through a closet which has access to an unfinished area. As is usual with domestic cats, Ronnie’s curiosity got the better of her and she wandered into that area and could not find her way out. Her meowing alerted her caregivers. They had just returned home after Thanksgiving and were unable to find her. You can hear the genuine anxiety in the voices of the humans as they desperately try to make contact with Ronnie in that dark void. I’ve managed to take a screenshot of the TikTok video at the exact moment Ronnie’s face emerges into the light which is why her eyes reflect it back so brightly. It makes for a good photograph although one which is not very sharp because it is a screen-grab from the TikTok video.
@causalinf Came back from thanksgiving but couldn’t find our cat, Ronnie. We heard her in the walls.
Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.
Postscript: you may know why Ronnie’s eyes are so bright. The light from the smartphone’s torch which was used to search for her in the void is reflected directly back by the reflective layer behind Ronnie’s retinas. It is why domestic cats have such good eyesight in near dark conditions.
Note: Sadly, in my cynicism, I have some doubts as to whether this is a genuine video. It just might be manufactured in the knowledge that it would be successful, which it is having gathered 1.5 million viewings at the time of writing this post.
A friend was making a new platform for me next to the refrigerator, so he had the old floor torn up and opened up while working, giving complete access to the crawlspace underneath. He had to come back a different day to finish. Two cats in the house. I warned him to never leave the hole uncovered when he wasn’t right there. Each time before I left, he assured me that he knew exactly where the cats were and they were not in the crawl space. And each time, you must know what happened next.
He was gone for two to three hours the first day before I heard a meow and banging where my friend had placed a board over the hole in the kitchen. Counting noses, I realized I hadn’t seen Cat Two (5 years old) in a while. It was too heavy for me to lift, so I went to the pipe access panel in the bathroom, where the pipes were open to the crawlspace. I knocked on the panel and called for Cat Two and she came to the panel and meowed.
I opened the access panel and out marched Cat Two without a hair out of place or a speck of dirt on her. No sign of emotional distress either. She looked a bit proud of herself, actually. Note that it took two or three hours for her to finish exploring the crawl space and to decide she wanted to come back to the house the same way she left it, but by then there was a board over her entry point. Hence the banging there first. She had been completely quiet during her explorations.
The second day, same thing. Cat One (9 years old) was the quiet adventurer this time. Took him two or three hours to break his silence and meow and bang on the floor in the kitchen, which now was permanently closed. Sauntered happily out through the bathroom access panel after I called him to it, with perfectly clean long white fur.
So it is very likely that the cat in this story did indeed find her way behind the wall all on her own but just didn’t get perturbed until she had explored it for a while. Cats do that.
One cat decades ago kept somehow getting up above the hanging acoustic panels on the basement ceiling as her own private den. That was a real trip trying to get her down when she was tired of it… Especially the day we were moving to another state! Same cat years later figured out how jiggle open a spring-loaded door to the space under the sink, explaining why she disappeared sometimes and could not be found. She could get out any time even when it automatically closed on her. I discovered the trick when I noticed a trail of ants heading that way. I had put a bag of dry cat food there, and both the cat and ants were snacking on it (after the cat chewed a hole in it, as she always did with any box or bag of cat food left unattended for even a minute).
You were right, of course, to warn him not to leave the hole open. Cats are naturally highly inquisitive as we know which is why they are said to have nine lives. Their inquisitiveness gets them into all kinds of trouble which can threaten their survival. And as they are good survivors they been labelled as having nine lives. The nine lives branding comes from three times the holy Trinity to make nine.