I can't replicate the issues you describe.
The "Animal Escapes" thread is listed as expected in Cryptozoology: General.
I can readily find it using the forum's Search facility, limited to titles only (with and without enclosing quotation marks).
The "Animal Escapes" thread is listed early in the search results when searching on these two words (as a quoted string or not).
However ...
Your latest post is not showing up in this last listing as a hit in a non-title search. That won't happen until the forum's search database goes through its next update cycle and your post is known to be affiliated with the thread.
The word "escapes" does not appear in your post. If you search using "escapes" there's no hit on your latest post. If you search using "escape", the latest post is included in the search results.
This different behavior occurs because the Search can identify "escape" as a subsidiary string within "escapes" (in the thread title) and thus generate a hit using "escape." The reverse is not true - the Search cannot (and should not) associate the longer text string "escapes" with a shorter text string.