Dusty has been acting really weird for almost a week. We're worried someone was keeping him in their house because he was missing for a number of hours last Sunday and his behavior has been really uncharacteristic to the point where he was really distressed for no apparent reason. My dad let him outside late Saturday evening and he didn't show up until after 5 o'clock on Sunday night. Dusty never stays away that long and our cats are fed moist food early in the morning and late at night with dry food available always. Dusty comes when called from outside, much like a dog, so if Dusty doesn't show up he's probably actually asleep in my sister's room and you're calling him like a fool. Both cats show up for feeding time and usually sleep all day if they were out all night or they're out all day and sleep all night inside and the get up to cat around near dusk. Dusty showed up really late when my mom went out calling for him for the umpteenth time and now he's scared to go outside. He won't go to the door or meow around wanting out like he usually does. My dad just coaxes him outside when before it had never been a problem and Dusty would actually take up acting bad or naughty to be let outside. On Monday he acted absolutely crazy! He was just pacing the house and crying out, distressed. I tried to pacify him by talking to him. He jumped on a table by the window and tried to bite the blinds and tug the curtains, then he went to my parents bedroom door crying and thumping his full 16 lbs. against it, acting more distressed than when he was just pacing. He finally settled down after a few minutes of that and after pulling a bunch of papers out of a basket so he could sleep in it. The basket is located behind one of our recliners and Dusty doesn't usually sleep....out of sight. He usually sleeps on one of our beds, the couch, or even the middle of the floor, someplace we've been or that gets a lot of traffic. He was outside for an hour on Monday afternoon and came in to use the litter box and didn't go back outside. On Tuesday he scared the life out of me! My dad had let Dusty outside, even though Dusty wasn't sitting in front of the door but the t.v. nearby which meant he didn't actually want outside, and then he left for work. About an hour later Dusty scared me trying to climb the window screen outside the window! He had his whole body on it and climbed to the middle part of the window [I](I could see his shadow because the sun comes in through our living room windows in the morning)[/I]. It took me a minute to realize what was going on because all I heard was the terrible noise his claws made when he tried to climb, before I heard him meowing. I let him in and he stayed in the rest of the day. On Wednesday my dad was home because he injured his back and nothing really irregular happened with Dusty other than him staying inside and being over-desperate for some of my dad's breakfast. On Thursday my dad was still home and let Dusty outside before his shower. Dusty showed up when my dad was finishing getting dressed and was ripping at the screen on the window again!! He was let in but was overly aggressive again about eating my dad's late breakfast and managed to lick the bagel and get hair everywhere. He went out a 2nd time that night but didn't stay out very long, less than an hour. I think he also went outside when my dad took our Shi Tzu out to potty but that lasted less than 10 minutes and dad isn't home to ask. He's been in all of today and was aggressive again about my dad's breakfast even though my mom and I were also eating. Mom said all week he's been waiting to wake her about a minute before her alarm goes off. Usually Dusty wakes her up about 4 o'clock if he's had enough sleep and she doesn't get up until 4:30 on her work days. Now Dusty has taken to starting cat fights with his mom, Sassy, as of last night. I think it's the pent up energy of not going outside but we would never toss him outside because something's bothering him. I worry that one of our neighbors might have physically picked him up and took him into their house and wouldn't let him leave until he started destroying their house. We live out in the country and have less that a dozen neighbors within view and our cats are usually in the nursery [I](TN is the nursery capitol of the world!)[/I] or woods around our house or the small wooded area across the road from us. Sassy also was acting alarmed on Sunday and showed up hours after Dusty, presumably looking for him. Any advice or ideas to help him would be much appreciated! If you've had a similar experience feel free to share and I hope yours has a good ending. I feel Dusty is being limited by his own fear and I just want him better. The only idea I've come up with is for one of us to kind of follow him around when he does go outside to see what he does and so he feels safe. But that's just not possible to do often and it sounds kind of silly, to follow such an independent animal like that.