Cat Stories

A long-lost cat finds his owner in New York after 11 years

Animal shelter workers recently helped reunite a cat missing for 11 years with his family. She is Carol O’Connell, employed by the Dutchess County SPCA (DCSPCA) in New York State.

Carol pet the stray cat three years after noticing it outside her house. Her curiosity led her to check if he was microchipped. With the help of the shelter’s scanner, she found that the cat had been microchipped.

“Every year he came to my house, he deteriorated more and more, and when he finally stopped deteriorating, I realized he might have been abandoned, maybe just lost or just a feral cat,” O’Connell said. The spring was the first time he began coming around in the mornings, so I worked harder to earn his trust.”

O’Connell was able to identify the owner and name of the stray kitten thanks to the chip. The SPCA could track down the missing cat’s owner through the chip information. The SPCA said that Maggie Welz had been searching for the cat for 11 years.

Maggie Welz had been without her beloved feline Tiger for over a decade, so she was happy when he turned up in New York. After getting checked out and given a clean bill of health, Tiger had a reunion with his mum Maggie.

And their touching moment was captured in a photo by DCSPCA. As you can see in the photo, Maggie is cradling Tiger, and the kitty is nuzzling up against her.

The man ran away and never returned after opening our door, said Welz. “We were left heartbroken, so a year later, we moved to another house about ten houses away, and the owners were told to keep an eye out for him, but he never showed up.”

His condition was remarkable given that he’d been on the streets longer than he’d known his family. He hadn’t seen them since he was just a toddler,” Dutchess County SPCA wrote in a Facebook post.

His condition was remarkably good considering he had been homeless this long.  He is now back with his family for the first time since he was three years old, according to a Facebook post from the Dutchess County SPCA.