Guard cat

I will write this from my point of view (not Chowder's, you'll see why in a minute). The other night, we had a big thunder storm. I was in my room down in the basement with my fiance. Misty was laying on our bed. The storm had passed and we didn't hear any thunder for about 15 minutes. We don't have a dog anymore, but everytime I hear a noise, I say to myself 'well, if someone was in the house, Shadow would tell me...' then it dawns on me that Shadow is no longer with us. Chowder appeared in our doorway, and looked in at us. Our door is right at the bottom of the steps. He stared in at us, and his ears were pointing back, like he was trying to listen to something. He kept looking in at us, and then turning his head and looking upstairs. He did this for about 2 minutes until we finally decided that we ought to go upstairs and check the house (my mom was at a meeting of some sort for cancer patients). On the way up the steps, I once again thought 'if someone was in the house, Shadow would...' and I still have to tell myself that he's gone. Once Chowder saw we were gonna follow him upstairs, he turned and bound up the steps. We followed him into the hallway, where he sat down between the bathroom door and my old room. My fiance and I checked everywhere we could possibly think of to check, that somebody would fit in to hide. We didn't find any intruders, so we went out on the front porch (my cousin who lives 2 roads away, but walking through fields, he's only about a half-mile away recently reported seeing a mountain lion walking down his driveway). Didn't see any animals (bears, deer, or other such) and didn't see any evidence of somebody hiding outside either. So we went back in, and I was telling Chowder that we didn't find anything as I walked to the hallway. He was gone. We looked near every food dish, under the couch and chairs, in closets (thinking maybe he snuck in when we checked in there). Nothing. This cat that had alerted us to something, was now missing. I feared maybe we overlooked somewhere, and whomever was hiding, grabbed him to kill him. We went back down cellar, thinking he had enough time to run back down there. We searched the rec room, the storage room, our room, and were about to open the door to go over to my dad's workshop (somehow the cats get in there even when the door is closed). I turned around, and saw Chowder following us. I was relieved, but it looked like he was looking with us. We went back into the rec room, where he disappeared again. We found him hiding behind a counter top my dad has leaning against the wall. So something spooked him for sure. I was also sure that there were no animals outside, because my cousin's horse was out in the pasture eating. If there were an animal, (anything but a deer), she would have been staring and bobbing her head. So I called my cousin, and asked if she had seen anything strange up here (she has a perfect view from her bedroom window up to the front of our house). She said she didn't, that her dogs were acting fine (she added that we need to get another dog. I informed her that when searching the house, I discovered that my mom still has a toy of Shadow's in her room, so she's not ready yet). So I don't know what Chowder was trying to tell us, I hope that it was just that the (long ago) clap of thunder scared him, and that nobody was here. We have had some weird things go on around here last summer. We found a dog treat sitting on the front porch steps, one of which Shadow did not eat, meaning we never got him that kind. The French doors to the patio have sliding screen doors, and though the French doors were closed and locked, the screen door was half open (we always either close it all the way, or leave it open all the way). And several other creepy things. We also had somebody call our elderly next door neighbors and asked if my fiance lived next door to them (they said his name, and she said that the man had a Spanish accent). She said yes, and that was all he wanted to know. So if Chowder was trying to tell us something, for how big of a scaredy cat he is, I'm very proud of him.

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