if we’re talking about consecutive time spent, ie one single uninterrupted block of time, then I’d say about 7~8 hours.
one time my ex-girlfriend’s cat managed to get way. we think it was one of the roommates opened the door to the back and wasn’t paying much attention. the cat was sneaky, he would try to dart out all the time
i spent the entire day, basically, walking around the fairly large apartment complex yelling out his name and shaking a bag of treats
a few hours in, my ex had a mental breakdown and gave up thinking any continued searching was hopeless. she really liked the cat and wasn’t taking it well
but i just kept at it. towards the end of the day, around dusk when it was starting to get dark, i heard an exasperated meow behind me and the cat came up running to me. it looked very scared and confused.
we had just moved from one place to another a few hours away. so it was used to be an outside cat but it didn’t know the area whatsoever.
anyhow it actually stopped trying to run out of the house after that, so that was nice
Man my cat was missing for 2 weeks and I went out every single night. He was not an outdoor cat at that point. It was so frustrating cause we could see claw marks where he had scratched at neighbours doors thinking it was ours, and from asking around the neighbourhood, people had seen him. Eventually found him chilling in someone’s yard with their cat, but yeah he never ran for it again. He also never gained the weight back that he lost during that time :( such an awful feeling.
if we’re talking about consecutive time spent, ie one single uninterrupted block of time, then I’d say about 7~8 hours.
one time my ex-girlfriend’s cat managed to get way. we think it was one of the roommates opened the door to the back and wasn’t paying much attention. the cat was sneaky, he would try to dart out all the time
i spent the entire day, basically, walking around the fairly large apartment complex yelling out his name and shaking a bag of treats
a few hours in, my ex had a mental breakdown and gave up thinking any continued searching was hopeless. she really liked the cat and wasn’t taking it well
but i just kept at it. towards the end of the day, around dusk when it was starting to get dark, i heard an exasperated meow behind me and the cat came up running to me. it looked very scared and confused.
we had just moved from one place to another a few hours away. so it was used to be an outside cat but it didn’t know the area whatsoever.
anyhow it actually stopped trying to run out of the house after that, so that was nice
Man my cat was missing for 2 weeks and I went out every single night. He was not an outdoor cat at that point. It was so frustrating cause we could see claw marks where he had scratched at neighbours doors thinking it was ours, and from asking around the neighbourhood, people had seen him. Eventually found him chilling in someone’s yard with their cat, but yeah he never ran for it again. He also never gained the weight back that he lost during that time :( such an awful feeling.