When one adopted cat who loved to roam began venturing beyond her owner’s backyard, a series of unexpected conflicts unfolded.

Read on for all the details!

AITA For allowing my cat outdoors, resulting in her getting catnapped by our neighbor (twice)

About a year ago, I lost an uncle in a private plane crash which resulted in the adoption of his cat Eva.

Eva lived on my uncle’s farm and had free roam of about 10 acres.

She’s one of the friendliest cats I’ve ever known and she loves people.

The new owner tried their best to reacclimatize Eva to new surroundings.

After a month or so of living with us indoors, Eva began expressing interest in going outside (she’s very vocal).

At first, I was reluctant as we only have an acre, but she always kept to our backyard which backs into a forest.

As her confidence grew, she began visiting neighbor’s houses. This is when the problems started to happen.

They began to worry about their cat, who didn’t come back as she normally did.

One afternoon, Eva never returned from her outdoor adventures, which cats are known to do.

After two days passed, I began to get worried & started searching the local “lost and found” animal social media pages.

Luckily, they had a lead.

Sure enough, I found someone had posted a photo of Eva and I promptly reached out.

The OP owned a house three doors down from ours who proceeded to allow Eva inside their house, and fed her.

This neighbor then took Eva to a shelter ~30 minutes away.

The owner drove over there in a hurry to find Eva in a concerning state.

I headed to this shelter as soon as I could, and when I picked Eva up she looked like death.

At this point in the story I blame myself for this happening. At the time Eva had a collar, but no name tag.

They thought they had learned their lesson and taken necessary preventative measures.

We corrected this issue by having the animal shelter create for her a tag with my number and the phrase “I am an indoor/outdoor cat.”

We also discovered she was chipped, which we now pay a subscription for.

But Eva’s ordeal had a lasting impact on her health.

It had only been three days, but Eva had lost a considerable amount of weight.

She also had developed a respiratory infection and was having trouble keeping food down.

We took her to a vet and after a couple treatments of antibiotics Eva was 100% again.

They thought they were done with the whole ordeal, until it happened again.

Fast forward 8 months later to this past weekend.

I get a text from my neighbor saying Eva was once again at their door.

I politely asked our neighbor to leave Eva outside and to not feed her.

The neighbor didn’t exactly follow directions.

My neighbor then proceeds to drive Eva down the road and drop her off in a stranger’s yard across from a busy supermarket.

The homeowner saw this take place, and chased my neighbor down in their car to ask what they were doing, pointing out the “Indoor/outdoor” collar.

Luckily, they were able to track down the ever-elusive Eva again.

I then get a call from this homeowner, Jeremy, who explains the whole situation and allows me to come grab Eva who at the time was hiding in some shrubbery in their backyard.

What a headache!

What did Reddit have to say about this cat with a mind of her own?

This commenter doesn’t think it’s fair for the owner to put all that stress onto their neighbors.

This redditor thinks the owner should let their cat roam sometimes, but should be smarter about how they track her whereabouts.

The neighbors are being a little heavy-handed according to this user.

This redditor knows the cat’s desire to roam is in her DNA. There’s only so much the owner can do.

Eva’s adventurous spirit is a handful, but this dedicated owner is determined to make sure she always returns home safely.

While she may enjoy roaming the neighborhood, some neighbors need to understand where her real home is.

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