stray cat – Page 2 – Pain In The Bud

Stray Walks 5 Miles In One Day To Get Back ‘Home’ After He’s Given Away

Max didn’t like his new “home” in a barn in Amish country and returned to the man who first showed him kindness.

Brad Bennett said Max the stray was in a bad way when he showed up.

The young cat was malnourished, missing patches of fur and was suffering from infections when Bennett saw him on the property of a western Pennsylvania home where he works as a personal caretaker, first via trail cameras set up to catch images of local wildlife, then in person.

The orange tabby cat was drawn by stale cat food Bennett had thrown out, but he was extremely cautious. He hissed at Bennett the first time the 58-year-old approached him and tried to attack him.

Bennett, who thinks Max may have been abused in the past, earned the stray’s trust and was eventually able to deworm him and give him flea and tick medication, he told local newspaper the Tribune-Democrat.

“I started feeding him and working with him,” Bennett told the paper. “Three months later, [he] was on my lap with me on the swing.”

maxthecat — Max the cat. Credit: Bill Bennett

Bennett, who has two cats of his own, said he couldn’t afford to keep Max because he was “tapped out” by thousands of dollars in veterinary bills, but he knew the little guy needed a home before winter so he made arrangements to take him to a nearby Amish farm which was in need of a mouser.

Max clearly wasn’t taken with the farm because he walked five miles and crossed a major interstate (376) to get back to the home where Bennett works — in one day.

“I kept having feelings of guilt about sending [him] off, not knowing what was going to happen,” Bennett said. “Part of me was kind of excited to see him.”

Bennett knew he couldn’t send Max back to the farm. After he wrote a Facebook post about Max’s situation, Jill Powell, a volunteer with Homeless Cat Management in Pittsburgh, drove about an hour from Pittsburgh to pick Max up. He’ll stay with a foster family until Powell and her organization can find him a forever home.

Whoever opens their home to him will find a grateful cat who knows what it’s like to struggle on his own.

“I was able to hold him, he meows and he reaches for petting,” Powell said. “He seems very sweet.”

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

What It’s Like Adopting An Internet Famous Cat, Plus: The Argumentative Cat

Kylo Ren, named after actor Adam Driver’s most notable role, changed the lives of a woman and her young son.

Remember the Adam Driver Cat?

The little guy made a big splash for a while back in 2016 when images of his unusual mug went viral and the internet decided he looked like the 39-year-old actor.

In an essay, Emily McCombs describes feeling “something deep in my soul” when she saw photos of the cat she’d name Kylo, in honor of Driver’s best-known role as the conflicted Sith lord in the third Star Wars trilogy. Against all odds, and despite intense interest in the Oriental Shorthair, McCombs was able to adopt Kylo after begging a friend for a ride from Brooklyn to the Monmouth County SPCA in New Jersey.

McCombs with Kylo Ren. Credit: Emily McCombs

Adam Driver, top left, Kylo at the bottom, and Kylo with McCombs at right. Credit: Monmouth County SPCA

But it’s what happened after that impacted McCombs and her young son the most. Kylo was gentle with McCombs’ son, had a habit of staring adoringly at her and “wasn’t truly happy if he wasn’t smooshed against my face.” Aside from the shoulder bit, Kylo sounds a lot like Bud:

“Rather than just being a lap cat, Kylo was more likely to perch on my shoulder, or plop down directly on my face,” McCombs wrote. “He preferred positions that made it impossible to do anything but pay attention to to him, and would regularly headbutt my phone when he wanted my undivided attention.”

Actually, he’s more polite than Bud, who has no qualms about slapping my smartphone out of my hands and loves to send it flying if I make the mistake of leaving it unattended on a flat surface. “Stoopid little glowing rectangle!” I imagine him yelling in the meowenese language.

Kylo became part of McCombs’ family, helping her tuck her son in every night after story time, and while McCombs said a few love interests came and went, Kylo endured.

McCombs got to spend seven wonderful years with Kylo before she made the difficult decision to euthanize him after he was diagnosed with kidney failure and his struggle became more desperate. The story’s worth reading for her take on grief, Kylo’s sweet relationship with her son, and her insistence that no amount of internet fame compared to the love Kylo gave the family.

It’s also validation of the way people feel when they lose their four-legged companions, and a reminder that grief doesn’t need to be justified, regardless of whether some people insist “it’s just a cat.”

The microchip company called to ask her to confirm a change of ownership for her missing cat

A British woman was thrilled when the microchip company contacted her to say her missing cat had been found, but was confused and dismayed when the representative on the line asked her to confirm a change of ownership.

Now she’s trying to get her kitty back, but her efforts have been frustrated by the other person who wants to keep him, as well as data protection laws that prevent the microchip company from identifying the person.

Beryl Edwards of Shropshire, a rural area bordering Wales, adopted her cat Fred and his brother Geno in 2021. Fred went missing over the summer in 2022, and Edwards said she was initially ecstatic when she was told he’d been found.

“And then out of the blue last week I get an email saying we’ve had a request – somebody wants a transfer of ownership,” Edwards told the BBC. “Can you imagine the range of emotions from, ‘Fred! He’s alive, he’s OK’ to ‘transfer of ownership? What’s this all about?’”

The company, Identibase, told Edwards that while they could not give her the person’s information, they would ask the person to contact Edwards and return the cat.

Edwards never heard back, and now it’s a criminal matter.

“We are following up on a number of enquiries and at this stage are treating the matter as a potential theft,” the West Mercia Police said, per the BBC.

It’s not clear if police believe the person who has Fred stole him from Edwards, or whether they found him and want to keep him, but we hope Edwards and Fred are reunited, and Fred gets to live with his bonded littermate Geno again.

I can understand why the company would hesitate to provide the other person’s information, even if no law existed. You don’t want people physically confronting each other and potentially taking pets by force in disagreements over ownership. It’s also possible that the person who wants to keep Fred never intended to “trip” the microchip, and Edwards’ information may have been discovered by a veterinarian during a routine exam. But perhaps the unusual case can inform a future change to the law so it’s easier for people to retrieve their pets in cases like this, and for law enforcement to return pets when there’s clear documentation showing one party is indeed the caretaker.

This is not funny

A woman opens her front door to find a distressed cat crying for her help. Instead of taking him in, feeding him, checking on his welfare or even calling a local shelter, the woman proceeds to film herself performatively yelling at the stray and telling him to “get on off my porch!”

The TikTok video went viral this past week and people think it’s hilarious.

File this under “Social Media Is A Sign Of Humanity’s Decline.” Maybe the woman would have been cold-hearted even if she wasn’t hamming it up for an internet audience, but the prospect of clicks and likes almost certainly played a part in the way she dismissively yelled at an animal who was obviously in distress. Even if she didn’t want another pet and couldn’t adopt the cat, it costs nothing to show kindness and make sure he gets to people who will do right by him.

I won’t link to the woman’s TikTok, but if you want to read Newsweek’s take about how her performance “delighted the internet,” click here. I hope the cat found a more sympathetic person and has either been returned home if he was lost, or found his way into a forever home if he was a stray.

White Sox Photog Saves Scruffy Stadium Stray, PLUS: Super Rare Male Calico Born in Colorado

A young ginger tabby made himself at home at the former Comiskey Park in Chicago, feasting off of ballpark food shared with him by fans.

The Chicago White Sox opened the baseball season on the road, then headed home where they hosted the San Francisco Giants — and a scrappy, hungry stray who helped himself to heaps of stadium food.

The cat appeared in the park for three consecutive nights of the homestand, emerging from a hiding spot in the bowels of the stadium to sidle up to fans eating ballpark grub and meow for them to share. And share they did, according to Block Club Chicago, with fans holding the little guy and feeding him “shredded chicken off the top of their ballpark nachos.”

“He was just super chill and very comfortable roaming the park, like it’s his territory,” White Sox fan Alexis Lopez told Block Club.

Beef the Cat — The stray, now named Beef, is enjoying his forever home and his doting human servant. Credit: Darren Georgia

The cat, who was “a little scruffy and thin” according to Lopez, took an overly enthusiastic bite of some stadium food and accidentally punctured the skin on her cousin Antonia Denofrio’s finger. Stadium staff treated Denofrio at the park and thought they were in for a thorough search for the kitty, but the night after the White Sox finished their home series against the Giants, the orange tabby “jumped right up onto a security golf cart and was super friendly,” White Sox team photographer Darren Georgia said.

Georgia brought the cat home, got him fixed and examined by a vet and named him Beef. Now they’re best buds.

“He’s outgoing, loves to play and snuggle,” Georgia told The Block. “Just everything you’d hope for in a cat.”

The unicorn of cats

When Alli Magish, a foster for NoCo Kitties in Colorado, took home a mom cat and her five kittens, she realized one of them was incredibly rare: a male calico.

calicomale — Charlie the male calico kitten is now 11 weeks old. Credit: NoCo Kitties

Magish brought the little guy, now named Charlie, to two veterinarians to confirm, and for all of them Charlie is their first male calico. Only about one in 3,000 calicos are male, the Coloradoan reported, citing statistics from the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

“We will probably get huge adoption fee offers for him, but we want him to go to the best home, and that’s not necessarily the one that could be the highest bidder,” Davida Dupont, founder of NoCo Kitties, told the Coloradoan.

Typical adoption fees for kittens at the rescue are $195, but Dupont says she wants to organize a fundraiser around the little guy before settling on the best place for his forever home. (Shhhh, no one tell Chloe Mitchell.) Since she spoke to the Coloradoan on April 1, NoCo Kitties has received a flood of adoption applications, and in a follow-up Facebook post Dupont says she hopes some of them will consider adopting the many other lovable cats at NoCo who are looking for homes.

RIP Elliot, The Stray Cat Found Frozen To The Ground

Little Elliot was recovering from his ordeal, but developed a deadly blood clot.

This feels like a real gut punch, especially after a South Carolina veterinarian’s heroic efforts to save Juliet, the cat who had 38 hair ties removed from her stomach and died after her health seemed to improve.

Elliot, you’ll recall, was the poor, sweet stray who was found literally frozen to the concrete on the day after Christmas, when the country was in a deep chill the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades, with temperatures plunging well into the negative. A Good Samaritan found the little guy in a bad way, with his eyes frozen shut and his organs shutting down, but she turned up her truck’s heat and rushed him to Big Lake Community Animal Clinic in Muskegon, Michigan, where the staff took good care of him and named him after the storm he was found in.

They wrapped little Elliot up in warm blankets, gave him fluids and began to slowly raise his body temperature, which was a dangerous 94 degrees. Things started to look up, too: Elliot had a habit of reaching his paw out to the vet techs who were monitoring him, began to regain his appetite, and eventually was able to stand and eat on his own.

But Elliot’s health took a turn for the worse again, and veterinarians determined he developed a saddle thrombosis, which is described as “a blood clot (called a “thrombus”) that lodges at the base of the aorta just as it branches into two distinct arteries, thereby obstructing blood flow to the hind limbs. It is so named because of the saddle-like shape it roughly resembles once it takes up residence in this location.”

For cats who develop a saddle thrombosis, the outlook is not good, and drugs designed to dissolve blood clots are often ineffective.

“Sadly, there was nothing we could have done to prepare for that but we knew it was time to let him be free from the pain and struggle he’s known most of his life,” Big Lake’s staff wrote to supporters.

A staffer named Diane Neas, who took Elliot into her home after a few days when he’d stabilized, was particularly hard hit by the loss, and understandably so. Well-wishes and applications to adopt Elliot had come pouring in, and it seemed like the former stray’s suffering would lead to the best reward — a warm home of his own and people to love and care for him.

“We find peace in knowing the last two weeks of his life were spent with people who showed him kindness, care and love,” shelter staff wrote. “We can’t believe the following and support he has gained on this journey to healing; from the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for caring so deeply for him and sending such love and support his way.”

Images courtesy of Big Lake Community Animal Clinic