Two Families Battle Over A Cat, Prompting The Question: What Defines Pet ‘Ownership’?

Bob/Maui the cat was adopted by one family in 2013, went missing a few months later and was rescued by another family, who have had him for 10 years.

Bob the cat was adopted by Carol Holmes of Wichita, Kansas, in 2013.

Holmes says Bob disappeared a few months later and that was the last she saw of him.

Alex Streight, who also lived in Wichita at the time, found Bob in a bad way, malnourished and in “bad condition.”

“He was in horrible shape,” Streight told WRAL, a North Carolina TV news station. “I fed him, kept looking for [the] owner. I posted in the Wichita groups, but I never found anyone.”

Streight, who was 27 years old and pregnant at the time, said the veterinarian gave her no indication the cat belonged to anyone, and her efforts to find a potential owner were unsuccessful, so she paid for his veterinary fees, adopted him and named him Maui.

When Streight moved to North Carolina in 2015, she took Maui with her and he’s been living happily with her family ever since. In late August Maui slipped out of Streight’s North Carolina home. A neighbor picked him up and brought him to the vet, and the veterinarian realized there was a microchip. A scan showed Holmes as the cat’s owner.

a tuxedo cat on a hanging wooden bridge
Credit: Arina Krasnikova/Pexels

Now Bob/Maui is in the custody of Wake County (NC) Animal Control, whose staff don’t sound keen on returning the cat to Streight. They’ve called Wilson, who said she’d like to be reunited with Bob/Maui, and when Streight went to animal control to get her cat — returning with the veterinary records when they wouldn’t release him to her the first time — the staff called police.

“The cat is in protective custody where an investigation will begin,” Jennifer Federico, a veterinarian with the county animal control, told the station. “The cat is safe and isolated.”

Federico seems intent on making the situation more complicated than it needs to be, telling WRAL that “Microchipping proves ownership, so we have to take that into consideration, and launch a full investigation.”

Streight doesn’t see it that way. She wasn’t registered as the owner on the chip, but she’s got 10 years’ worth of veterinary records, a photograph of Maui laying on her couch the day he slipped out of her house, and photos and videos showing the tuxedo cat with her kids and other pets over the past decade.

“It’s just absurd to me that anyone would think to take someone’s pet away from the family that he’s been with for ten years,” Streight said.

We have to agree with Streight here, and it’s disturbing that animal control has not only made itself the arbiter of the cat’s fate, but has apparently decided that nominal ownership based on a microchipping from 2013 trumps the fact that Maui has been happily a part of Streight’s family for at least 95 percent of his life.

We feel for Wilson, but Streight did everything right: She looked for the cat’s family, posted about him online, cleaned him up and got him veterinary care, then adopted him when all indications were he didn’t have a home. With a decade’s worth of vet bills, photos and videos backing her up, it’s clear Maui is happy in her home, has been well cared-for, and if he could speak there’s little doubt about where he’d prefer to go.

She’s clearly bonded to the cat, and he to her: Only someone who really loves their furry friend regularly takes photos of their cat, even after 10 years. I can attest to that fact: Probably 60 or 70 percent of the photos on my phone are of Buddy, and I’d be devastated if we were separated.

What do you think? Should Bob/Maui be returned to Wilson or Streight?

tuxedo cat sitting on ground
Credit: Dima Solomin/Pexels

16 thoughts on “Two Families Battle Over A Cat, Prompting The Question: What Defines Pet ‘Ownership’?”

  1. He should be returned. This proves the importance of chipping from day one with any cat to avoid “human disagreements” which in reality don’t affect any cat, The second family should immediately look to adopt another from a shelter as they are clearly the right people to have their lives ruled by a furry overlord – there are so many that need forever homes

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  3. One. If that were my cat i would want him back as he has escaped in garden few times but always came back. Two.Second family? ADOPT A CAT FROM KILL SHELTER!!!

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  4. I have a bad habit of not reading all of story. If second family had this cat for more than a few years? Sorry. I would not give cat back. This is a horrible and sad situation all around.

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  5. I find it odd that the vet Alex took Bob/Maui to didn’t scan him for a microchip. That should’ve been the first thing done. Unless, of course, he was scanned and everyone involved decided to look the other way. Reminds me of the Judgement of Solomon.

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    1. Unfortunately there’s no national microchip database and there are about a dozen companies that manufacture chips for pets. In recent years there’s been an effort to standardize them, but different companies use different kinds of chips and a vet’s scan might not pick up a chip if the scanner is made by Company A operating on a certain frequency, and the chip is made by Company B that requires a scanner using a different frequency.

      I think that’s probably the case here, especially if the cat was chipped 10+ years ago.

      It’s probably worth doing a post about this stuff at some point.

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  7. This is a tough call, and I don’t know what to say. BTW this post, and the one before it, don’t seem to have appeared in the WordPress reader. I might have missed them (?)

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  8. Maybe they should do as King Solomon did: threaten to cut the cat in half and see which lady caves. The one who caves is the one who loves him most. And the one who takes the (whole) cat home. 😻💝🥰❤🌷🧁just a suggestion…….

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    1. Or do what Judge Judy did in an episode where two people were fighting over a dog: She had the dog brought into the courtroom and set down on the floor. The dog immediately made it very clear who his person was, making a beeline for him, tail wagging excitedly, jumping up and down.

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  9. Did Streight’s vet never scan the cat in all those years? While I agree the cat is hers, did she not consider chipping the cat herself in those ten years? And registering him in her name? She did everything else right, why not that?

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