eliot scare

approximately 28 hours ago, eliot was chillin' under our back porch. he seems to like it there. kara came home for lunch to let the puppies out of their crate and do their business. steve, as she is wont to do, wandered under the porch. (she likes it there too.) she apparently startled eliot and he apparently swatted at her. he dashed away somewhere and she emerged from beneath the porch, perhaps a little befuddled but not really hurt. the thing was, eliot was apparently quite frightened by steve indeed and he dove deeper into our neighborhood than he had been before. this is, of course, speculation, but the point is that he did not come home for hours. kara returned from work again in the afternoon and then i returned from work. no eliot. kara was worried. probably compartmentalizing (as i am wont to do), i figured he would come home when he was ready, but then i wasn't sure. then kara heard him meowing and found him in our neighbor's back yard, on the other side of the fence. we couldn't reach him and he couldn't jump over. he was obviously one terrified and confused cat. kara went around and met the neighbor, who quickly came to the back yard in a well-meant attempt to retrieve eliot, but she only frightened him off again. of course i should have just hopped the fence and grabbed him, but i was concerned about violating our neighbors' space, especially as we hadn't even met. eliot was gone again. kara searched the neighborhood and i searched the neighborhood. (kara all the time was thinking of her cat wingo, a heck of a good cat, who as she aged became an indoor cat. when i entered the picture, i brought yellow with me, and he was a bit rough with wingo; perhaps because of her fear of him wingo went outside one night and was killed by some other animal [probably not yellow]. kara last evening was very stressed and worried about losing yet another pet.) between the general area where kara thought eliot might be and our house there were several dogs in the yards, and we knew eliot would be frightened of them too and not try to return on his own. finally she spotted him under a house halfway down the block, but he wouldn't come out for her. he was still freaked out. i went and saw him, but he wouldn't come out for me either, until i brought a can of his food with me. i put some in a bowl and he finally came out. while he was eating i grabbed him and he struggled. he struggled, still terrified, while i carried him home. he can be slippery, but i held onto him. he fought me so much, he'd been resistant to our calls, and he'd been gone for so long that i actually thought he didn't want to live with us and be our cat any more. but he's still our cat, and things turned out well. all the animals are okay. still, it was scary for a bit there. we're going to keep the cats indoors for a while, until they get more used to the dogs. i hope that doesn't take very long.