Gosh what an evening and morning.
We let the kids out last night after work to play like always.  But when it
was time to put them back in their cages, Pandora was missing.  I wasn't
terribly worried at first, but became more so as the minutes went by
without so much as a sound.  We searched the house.  The laundry room was
completely blocked off as it should be, the bathroom doors were shut as
they should be, the child-locks were on the kitchen drawers and cabinets,
and no one had gone outside or in since the ferrets had been out, so I
knew she couldn't have gotten outside.  Finally, we went to bed; still no
Pandora.  I was hoping that she had fallen asleep somewhere and would come
out during the night when she got hungry.
 
This morning, still no Pandora!  I got up at 5 AM and did the
whole-house-search again.  Not a sound anywhere.  I got my husband up, he
searched everywhere, no luck.  Our hearts were sinking.  I was by now
convinced that she had either found a hole somewhere and gotten out of the
house (and if so, that would be very bad, as it's very cold and pouring
rain all night), or else she had gotten trapped somewhere in the house and
suffocated or been crushed.
 
Then, I was in the bathroom, and thought I heard a sound.  I grabbed my
husband and we both went in and tore through the cabinets and drawers.
Still no Pandora!  Yet, now we both could hear scratching!  Then it started
to move around the bathroom!  Finally, we figured out that she was somehow
inside the floor!
 
Seth (my husband) went out immediately and braved the pitch dark, the cold
mud, and the black widows to crawl under the house.  Sure enough, he found
her, still scratching away to get at us where my little girl and I were
calling to her in the bathroom.  He had to cut her out of the insulation!
She was hungry and VERY subdued by the experience-- I daresay it's the
stillest and quietest I've ever seen her-- but she doesn't seem to be
harmed in any permanent way.  I rushed her right in and bathed her; she
was coated in fiberglass, and there's a lot of pesticides under there for
the black widows.  As soon as she went back in the cage, she ate and went
to sleep.
 
I still can't figure out how she got out.  The only thought I have is maybe
there's a hole under the kitchen cabinets-- Seth said this morning that he
thinks she can still get in the cabinets by going behind the refrigerator
and stove and there's an opening into the cabinets back there.  Does anyone
have any ideas on how to block off the area between refrigerator & stove,
and refrigerator & wall?  I can't use babygates to block the kitchen,
because A) she climbs over them, and B) it's an open floor plan and there's
really no doorway between the kitchen and dining room and living room and
office, it's all big open areas with just partial wall dividers.  Any help
would sure be appreciated!
 
Just think all this before the sun came up this morning.  Needless to say
I was late for work today.
 
I just pray that she is okay and won't suffer any lasting effects from
this ordeal-- and, her out-of-cage activities are going to have to be
drastically cut until we figure out how she got into the floor.
 
Vickie, Pandora, Flower, Moogie, Tank, and Diva
[Posted in FML issue 2562]