Just over a month ago, this stray showed up around my house one night after I got home from a night out bar hopping. I had seen he was very skinny, but when I tried to approach him, he had gotten scared and ran off.
Every night I’ve left a can of moist food out for him on the lid, mashed up for him to enjoy. He eventually got more and more comfortable with me as I tried to get closer, to where I could pick him up and he would just sit on my shoulder like a parrot, or lay in my arms like a little baby, or sit in the garage with me when I’m working on my truck, or would wait outside my door for me to get home and recognized my car. Because he wasn’t comfortable coming inside until a couple of nights ago, I set him up a little hotel outside. But last night had gotten extremely cold, so I brought him inside and all night he was just cuddled up with me in bed.
Turns out this little fella has been missing for almost 2 months, just under a year old, and goes by Spotty. I found his owners this morning, and after sending me videos of him playing and seeing him get excited watching them, I knew they had to be his owners. The husband came by earlier, offered me a reward but I respectfully declined to take it because the amount of joy seeing them reunited was more rewarding than any dollar amount could’ve brought. He was a good cat, and I’m so happy to have helped make a happy ending possible.
The moral here, I don’t think it’s hard to be a good person. It just requires some effort, and putting someone above you.
Thank you for your efforts! I was once (a couple decades+ ago) the devasted owner of a cat who got lost. It was kindness of others who helped finally reunite me with my cat after six long weeks of searching, putting up posters, offering rewards, visiting every shelter in the area regularly, etc....
The person who got a hold of my cat found his collar and the tag with my phone number, and gave me the call. To be safe, I made sure a friend knew where I was going, then I was out the door with his carrier like a shot! My cat was hiding under a trailer in a trailer park and scared, but it didn't take long to coax him out and into his carrier.
The person who had given him some food and made the call was clearly not well off. They did not know about the large reward. They got it anyway!
Also, my cat had arrived at the trailer park by following a little girl there. She got a reward too. I went and found a near life-size doll, found a little plushy cat the same color as mine in scale to the doll, and carefully put them together in the doll's box, then wrapped the huge box up super-fancy with a thank you note that had a picture of my cat, and gave it to the mother to surprise her daughter with. (It was getting near Christmas.)
My cat literally purred non-stop that whole night, skinny as he was. The next day, he had a visit to the vet for a flea bath and checkup, he purred through all of that too, the vet had to make him stop purring so she could listen to his heart! (She gave him a whiff of alcohol cotton ball to sniff.)
He was my soul kitty, found at 2AM in a Safeway parking lot. I did try to find if he was lost and had owners, before adopting him myself, but nothing and nobody ever called or got in touch. I'd notified all area shelters, left word at all local vets, put an ad out, put a poster on the Safeway bulletin board, but it's likely he was dumped, being a large boy, and only about a year old according to the vet.
Was the early 1990s, so fewer online options then.
It is absolutely devastating when a kitty gets lost! You are in dread all the time of a call telling you he's been found dead. Or reading it in Animal Control's "found dead" lists, which I was checking during my search. Worse is the possibility of never knowing what happened. I know all my friends thought I was nuts for making such a massive search effort for those six weeks, and in the end, it wasn't the classified ads or the reward posters, or the vet notices, or telling everyone I could think of that did the trick.
It was simply a kindhearted stranger doing the right thing.
I too lost a kitty once that had wandered off too far. I lived with dad at the time and Joey couldn’t come inside. Well I put a sign up at a vet’s office that was sorta close to us. (We lived in a very rural area) It had been a couple weeks and I was just sick with worry and I got a call. Someone had called into the vet office asking about a kitty and they gave them my number. They then called me and I flew out the door as soon as I got an address. He was at least 2-3 miles as the crow flies from my house. He was there eating some food and happy as could be to see me. I loved on him the whole way home.
He made at least 4 moves with me and helped raise my girls into kitty lovers like myself. He was the best boy ever. Made it 14 years until we had to say goodbye due to cancer. He made a lasting impression on our family though. We later had a kitten named JJ (Joey Jr) who lived 11 years. My daughter now has a kitten named Joey. We jokingly call him Joey cubed. Some cats just never go far from your heart.
You are an absolutely incredible human being. I hope your side of the pillow is always cold. Thank you for helping this sweetie and not just dismissing him as a stray🥺
I had to keep him in my room due to my other two cats not being good hosts, but Spot kept meowing around 3am to wanna go outside. So I’d have to call him over, to which I didn’t know his name at the time. But just me talking to him made him jump on the bed and then all of a few pets and he’d calm down. I wake up in the morning to him sprawled out to my right, with a resting smile no less. That about melted my heart right then and there.
I have a typical black-and-white cow cat currently! Plus his brother, a tabby-and-white. I call him my "brindle" cow. They are my first "cows" but have been a sheer delight! They are also my first experience with fully-bonded siblings.
Both were feral 12-week-old kittens abandoned by their mom in our backyard with the rest of their litter. I found homes for three of the five after putting in some socialization work, but the remaining two were the least well-socialized and still somewhat leary of humans, and we adopted them when winter came on and there were no takers. So no worries of any previous owners.
Love a feel good story❤️ I reunited a dog with their family after he was missing for a year, the feeling of bringing that type of happiness to another person really lingers.
It’s such a good feeling! You’re a good person for doing this. There was a cat hanging round outside work a few years ago. He looked a little scruffy and wouldn’t let me get near him but after a few months he became friendly. Weirdly, it was like a sudden switch and he became friendly with EVERYONE. My work is fairly remote, in an industrial estate and not near houses. I ended up taking him home as I was worried his new found friendliness would see someone ‘take’ him or hit by a car.
He stayed with me for a week before I managed to find the owner. He was a house cat and escaped when they were having work done in the house. He’d been missing for over a year and from about 30 miles away. The owner couldn’t believe it and came to pick him up. She was in absolute tears of joy and it was pretty emotional. I’m a grown ass apathetic dude and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shedding a tear too. We are now Facebook friends and she often posts photos of him. It’s great.
I’d be absolutely devastated if anything happened to any of my cats, and I’d love to think that if the tables were turned someone would do the same thing for me.
Edit: To add, I just related to your wholesome story and wanted to share mine. I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m trying to hijack your post.
As someone who would absolutely PRAY that a stranger would do this if my baby got out and ended up 2 miles away, I thank you so much for your kindness.
He managed to cover nearly 2 miles before making it over by me. The owner said he was almost as big as my cat Taurus, who’s 17lbs. When I first saw him he couldn’t have been more than 2lbs. This morning he was close to 10lbs.
Omgggg bawww! Thank you for your kindness! I deal with this often with wandering pets in my hood but not missing by months 😭 I always try my best to reunite as many pets I can and luckily I have friends/neighbors here with chip scanners so it’s typically an easy and quick reunion 🥹
I was able to make a Facebook post in a local group about her, but Facebook made it really difficult. Most groups don’t allow posts about pets. So I really needed to put some time into finding a group. I managed to find two, and within a day the posts blew up, and the owner reached out to me this morning.
I just need to point out that that beautiful, lucky lad has a fairy ring on his back. He clearly had to pay his respects to the fae realm for a bit and got lost trying to get home.
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u/Italian_man911 11h ago
And for the record, I’m not crying. My eyes are just waterparks.