Missing cat reunites with NJ family after being gone 10 years

Call me a glass-half-empty kind of guy, but once a pet is missing for more than a few days, I assume the worst. Gone a week? It’s not coming back.

I don’t know if it’s negativity or if it’s just my tendency to accept life’s hard realities. As Red said in “The Shawshank Redemption” hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Skepticism about lost pets and “miracle returns”

Even when people share crazy stories of a pet finding its way back home after two years, the cynical side of me thinks that if there’s no collar, it’s probably just a stray that sort of resembles their old dog but isn’t the same one.

Unless a microchip proves it. And that’s exactly what happened in a strange case of a missing cat in New Jersey.

A decade-old disappearance in Montclair

Ten years ago, a family adopted two kittens from a shelter and had them microchipped. Before long one of the kittens slipped through a window and got out of the house. After it disappeared, the family did everything it could think of. They combed the town, talked to neighbors, put out flyers, and contacted every shelter they could.

The cat was never seen again. The family was heartbroken.

Montclair Animal Shelter finds a microchip ping

Now, after 10 long years, they have their cat back. It really is the right cat.

A stray cat was brought in by a good Samaritan to the Montclair Animal Shelter few days ago. Then scanned it for a microchip and it got a ping. The family still had the same phone number.

After 10 years, a reunion—and new questions

Imagine getting that call. I assume the family was as elated as the shelter was to be able to make the reunion possible. But I also wonder how different the family’s lives are now. The kids are no doubt grown. Do they still live in a home where having a cat is possible? Was the cat in and out of homes in the last decade or has it been feral for 10 years and if so what challenges might that pose?

Regardless, odds are that even if there are some logistics to be worked it’s been a happy and unexpected ending to a crazy story. Hopefully, that cat can live another happy and healthy ten more years with its loving family.