An Abishag Tale

When Abishag wasn’t even a year old, she went missing for an entire day and evening. We’d called and looked everywhere, we thought, and were really beginning to fear the worst. Then about 9:30 pm, we heard her behind us, and there she was, standing at the foot of the maple tree, looking up at us.

Wonderful! We told her how happy we were to see her, unharmed and now safe and sound. After a big round of hugging and petting, I asked her, half-jokingly, “If you could talk, Abishag, I’d ask you where you’d been.” I’d noticed when I picked her up that her fur smelled like pine needles.

She almost smiled. Then she ran up the trunk of the maple tree and turned a back flip. (Yes. I’m not kidding, and I never saw her do another.) She meowed a complete explanation, and then sat down and looked very expectantly at us. 

There. I told you. I was here all the time, but you didn’t think to look in the branches of the pine tree. I chose it because it was taller.

Apparently something had scared her badly, and she climbed quite a ways up the pine, staying there until she felt safe once more. We had some roving dog packs at that time, and of course coyotes were (and are) prevalent, so she had listened to her instincts and rescued herself.

Abishag was always one smart cookie.