By Jessica Belasco, Express-News Staff Writer

When Nancy Powell's cat Miss Felix went missing in September, she did everything she thought she was supposed to do.

She hung fliers, put an ad in her local paper and walked around the neighborhood a few times a day calling for her. But there was no sign of the little gray cat.

After six days and some Internet research, Powell, who lives in King of Prussia, Pa., decided it was time to hire a professional.

So she picked up the phone and called Jenne Mundy, cat profiler.

Mundy, who lives in San Antonio, got right to work. She examined photos of Felix and Powell's backyard and maps of Powell's neighborhood. She spent hours on the phone asking Powell questions: When did Felix disappear? What did she like to eat? What were her sleeping habits? How did she act toward strangers?

After analyzing the situation, Mundy instructed Powell to put out water and a plate of pungent fish every night at the edge of her backyard terrace, where the cat had a clear view of the surrounding area, and bring it in every morning. Twelve days after she had first disappeared, Felix came home.

"Jenne is really something else. She's a scientist. She knows the science of what happens to lost cats," Powell says. "Before I called Jenne, I had exhausted myself with lots of misguided running around."

Mundy is not a cat psychic or a cat whisperer. She does not drive out and find your lost cat for you. Instead, she helps cat owners locate and recover their pets using facts about the animal's personality, history, surroundings and the circumstances of its disappearance.

"I have no gifts with cats. My own cats ignore me," says Mundy, 35. "It's all about probabilities. I'm good at logic."

As far as she knows, she's the only professional cat profiler in the world.

Mundy never planned to go into the pet detective business. She majored in English at Trinity University and studied professional writing at the University of Southern California. In January 2003, she was working as a freelance writer and editor when her tortoiseshell cat, Katka, escaped from her apartment at Bitters and Huebner roads.

Mundy spent nearly three months trying to track Katka down, trying various techniques she found on online message forums. Some were helpful, but most were useless — such as leaving dirty laundry and used cat litter on the porch to attract the missing kitty.

By the time she recovered Katka, who had been hiding under some drainage pipes in her apartment complex, Mundy was determined to help other cat owners by separating the helpful methods from the misinformation.

Meanwhile, she had met Kat Albrecht, founder of the nonprofit Missing Pet Partnership. Albrecht, a former police detective, applies skills and technology used to locate criminals and missing persons to track down lost pets with search dogs. Albrecht took on Mundy as her first and only trainee, sharing her research and experience, and Mundy began to counsel others.

"If they want individual coaching and a detailed analysis, it's going to require asking a lot of questions, and that's what Jenne does," Albrecht says. "I think she's very good at what she does. She's had a lot of experience, and it's her passion."

Working as a volunteer, Mundy was overwhelmed with calls and e-mails from desperate cat owners from California to Sri Lanka. At the urging of her friends and family, she began charging clients.

"It was taking over my life," she says. "I don't take holidays, I don't take weekends. Christmas Day, I work. Because cats go missing every day."

To her clients reunited with their beloved pets, the $150 fee is worth it.

"Well, I found my cat. What else do you need to know?" says Powell, who was also impressed by Mundy's dedication. "All through this time I was probably on the phone to Jenne, oh, two or three times a day. She was very clear in telling me I could call her night or day."

Profiling cats "takes up 90 percent of my time but it doesn't pay the bills," says Mundy, who continues to earn her living primarily through writing and editing. But she's not planning to quit.

"When Katka was lost, there was no one like this. There are no manuals. You can't go to Barnes and Noble and find a book about how to recover your lost cat," she says. (And) when the kitties come home, I can't tell you how great that feels. It's just awesome."

Mundy has to correct all kinds of myths about lost cats. For example, your indoor cat didn't run away because it decided to live outside instead. It probably wasn't stolen for medical experiments or fur harvesting. And don't assume a coyote ate it.

"They all think that, even if they live in New York," she says.

Cats usually disappear because they were trapped somewhere, they got injured or they were frightened by another animal or fireworks or a lawnmower; sometimes another person takes the cat in.

"There are only so many things that can happen to a lost cat. It seems like there are infinite possibilities but it's not like that," Mundy says.

She emphasizes that just because you can't see the cat doesn't mean it's not there. Owners waste time looking for cats a mile from home, she says, but cats, who are very territorial, tend to stick close by.

The problem comes when they keep hidden and quiet, even when their owner is calling or shaking a dish of kibble. A trapped cat will often cry out when called, but cats that were spooked would rather stay where they are than risk the potentially dangerous unknown, says Mundy. That's also why they won't go home on their own, even if they know the way.

"People think that cats can logic this out as a human would. People attribute human attributes to cats, and it's ridiculous. (That's) why you have a cat, because your cat is a cat and not a human," she says. "But as soon as your cat is lost you assume it's going to have human emotions."

Instead, Mundy says, try to think like your pet. Is there a neighbor who feeds strays? It's likely the missing kitty is hanging out near the free chow.

As important as her cat-finding advice is, Mundy's clients say, sometimes it's the emotional support and encouragement that helps the most.

"She's just got a very gentle personality. She's logical, which is helpful, but she's also comforting. She really cares," says Echele Thomas, whose orange tabby, Honey, escaped through a broken screen window in the basement of her Severna Park, Md., home in 2004. "There's the whole animal side to things, but there's also the people side, because it really is about the people. Ultimately, I believe that the cats can survive. But it's the connection between the pet and the owner, that's the important part."

Pam Clark called Mundy after her Maine Coon cat, Harry, went missing from her vacation cabin on Vermont's Lake Sunapee last summer. Clark was leaving food in several traps as well as on the porch. Mundy pointed out the cat was unlikely to enter a trap if he could find food elsewhere; she also advised Clark to put out the food at the same time every night to take advantage of Harry's clocklike eating habits.

"I just really felt peace because I had someone who listened to me," says Clark, who lives in Sterling, Mass. "Jenne helped me know he was there. I said, 'Are you sure he's there? You're in Texas, how do you know he's there?' But she said, 'I know this type of cat. It's the hardest kind to recover.'"

Mundy acknowledges that what she does is a little odd.

"When I was little I wanted to do something to leave the world a better place," she says. "I didn't exactly think this would be how."