'Lessons learned: don’t take your fancy indoor cat outdoors no matter how prepared you think you are': The heart-pounding tale of a couple whose cat escaped their tent on their first camping trip, embarked on a desperate search and a miraculous rescue

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Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Aug 21, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

Let's be honest, we have all thought about it at one point or another. 'What if I were to put a harness on my cat child and head out into the world with them? We could travel together, eat a sardines under the Eiffel Tower, share a glass or two of purrsecco in Venice and generally live a really full life together.'.

And while most of us stop at the thought stage, realizing that our cat children are far too anti-social for world travel, and would be hard-pressed to make it past TSA without throwing a hissing fit, the couple from today's story kept going and made their travel kitty dreams a reality. Now, we do have to give them some props for actually taking the leap that so many a terrified to do. But maybe they should have stopped to ask themselves, at one point or another, why so many others do not even attempt this act of daring do? Well, they found out soon enough, and all the juicy details of how it happened are right down below. 
 

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  • 01
    Did I see all the warnings on Reddit about the risks of taking your cat camping? Yes, I did. Did I read that there were too many devastating lost ads to count? Yes, I did. Yet, I
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 02
    thought my fancy, indoor, ragdoll cat could beat the odds and turn into an adventure cat. Welp, I got humbled, and I now know for certain that one should NOT risk taking their indoor cat outdoors, as obvious as that may seem.
    via LouisCocoUmma

  • This person must particularly like horror movies because they set themselves up for one to happen. Just think, there is some taboo thing that everyone tells the person not to do, and even with all the warning signs along the way, the person still goes ahead and opens pandora’s box. 

  • 03
    My husband, dog, cat, and I went camping. Since it was to be our first 3- day camping trip, we worried about leaving our cat home alone since she had never been alone more than a night. Plus,
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 04
    she was on half wet food that we wouldn't be able to automatically dispense like the dry food. We thought it would be more reassuring to keep her with us, and we even bought a new air tent that would make the entire tent as one zipped up
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 05
    seamless tent. I made sure to get a tent that had two compartments so that the outer compartment would serve as sort of like the airlock of a spacecraft. That way, we could secure her in the interior section before unzipping the tent
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 06
    opening. She was already used to the harness as she had gone on a few day trips with us before, so we also kept her on a long leash inside the tent. We packed everything that would help ease the stress of a new environment, bringing a
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 07
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    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 08
    scratch post, a litter box. of decent size, and lots of snacks. It was fine until the early early hours of the morning. She had been meowing, which was not normal and I worried it would wake the other
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 09
    campers. Finally around 4am, she calmed down, and I went to sleep. At 5am, my husband woke to use the restroom and woke me up when he said in a panicked voice, "Coco. Where's Coco??"
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 10
    We dumbly checked under the blankets and searched the nooks and crannies to no avail. I felt dumbstruck. We lost her. We lost our daughter. We became "those" irresponsible parents. We didn't deserve them.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 11
    After searching around the area, under cars, and walking up and down the road, we tried to tell ourselves and each other that we had another two days and Coco would come back to us. In our
    via LouisCocoUmma

  • Jhezz, all jokes aside, this must have been one of the most stressful situations that this couple has gone through. To plan on a calming camping trip with your canine and cat children only to end up on a cat hunt is certainly not what you would expect to happen. 

  • 12
    hearts though, we knew that she wouldn't. She wasn't one of those outdoor cats who came back home at night. She has zero survival skills, and she's even a little clumsy at home! We
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 13
    thought of several other things to do like having the camp manager make an announcement over the loudspeaker, going site to site asking campers if they'd seen Coco, putting up notices on social media and local community sites, etc. We
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 14
    felt so heavy and our future as a family looked bleak - look at what happens when families lose a loved one?
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 15
    Then, suddenly my husband said let's take the car and drive down to the village further down the mountain. We drove about two kilometers down slowly, calling her name out. When we
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 16
    reached the village, we turned around and on our way back up still calling her name, we saw her walking in the same direction as the car, up the hill, in the middle of the road looking back at us. As if she had heard us call her name. But the car
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 17
    was still rolling forward and she started running away. I unceremoniously threw my dog into the back seat (I apologized to him later), and I jumped out of the moving car running at top speed. I
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 18
    had lost sight of her though when I was jumping out of the car and at my husband's shouted directions, I turned quickly into an open shed which had both sides open. Because
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 19
    I was still running, Coco, who had actually stopped running and had been sitting in the shed, was surprised by my fast approach and skittered into a 1.5-ish meter long piece of pipe. I quickly ran to the other side where I anticipated her exit, and
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 20
    her head popped out for a minute making eye contact with me, her wide eyes seemingly asking, "Mom?? Is that you?" Not to risk another flight, I blocked both ends of the pipe until my husband caught up, pulled her out and cradled her closely to
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 21
    Cheezburger Image 10544067840
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 22
    his chest while simultaneously yelling, "COCO!!! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN????" It was a freaking miracle. Three hours of wild adventuring for Coco. Forty minutes of extreme anxiety for Mom and Dad.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 23
    To make this already long story shorter, I will leave out the details about the grandma on the farm, my dog's unusually loud whimpering just before we discover Coco, my husband's fervent prayer, and my own almost- supernatural vision just before finding her.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 24
    Lessons learned: don't take your fancy indoor cat outdoors no matter how prepared you think you are, no tent is cat-proof, and pray hard.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 25
    By the way, for those who might be curious as to how exactly she got out of the tent, we found cat hair caught on the zipper. Never having shown us that she could escape her harness and do more than open door handles in our apartment, we
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 26
    found she had another talent. She freaking nudged the zipper open.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 27
    Pic 1: Just hours before her escape. Pic 2: The day we got home from camping and after we gave her a bath. Being a potato sack without a care in the world or any appreciation for the life of luxury we provide her.
    via LouisCocoUmma
  • 28
    She could've been hungry, wet, dirty, scared, and alone out there! On a mountain!
    via LouisCocoUmma

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