After going missing in 2015, a cat was homeward bound to its Maine owner on Wednesday after being found in Florida.
Denise Cilley, the owner of a cat named Ashes, said the family’s cat went missing on her daughter’s 10th birthday. They searched around all over for the pet but could not find her, believing she had possibly become prey for a wild animal. Around six and a half years later, however, Ashes was recovered by an animal shelter in Florida, according to WABI 5.
“I had a voicemail from a shelter in Florida that said they found my cat,” Cilley told the outlet. “And I was, like, that’s weird. And I was going to call them and say, ‘Oh, you have the wrong number.’ But they called and said, ‘We found your cat,’ and I’m, like, ‘well, I live in Maine, and I’m not missing a cat.’ They’re, like, ‘well, the microchip came back to you.’”
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Janet Williams, an animal rescue worker from Maine who now lives in Florida, told the outlet that Ashes’s condition was “pretty poor when she was first found.” A couple had taken her in as a stray and took her to the veterinarian due to her declining health. When Ashes was scanned, a microchip inside her was found that traced her back to Cilley, the outlet reported.
It is unclear how Ashes managed to get 1,448 miles away from her Maine home, with Williams joking she has interrogated the cat “quite strictly and she is not talking.” Cilley told the outlet it is possible Ashes hitched a ride in someone’s vehicle or someone had taken her as her own pet and then moved out of state. Regardless, Cilley said Ashes’s discovery is “just really a mystery.”
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Ashes boarded a Wednesday flight to Maine with one of Williams’s friends and was reunited with Cilley at the airport.
