NJ cat missing for two years is found

Whenever I see a headline like the one I just wrote, my first thought is ... nah, it’s probably just a stray cat that LOOKS like their old cat and the owners convinced themselves. But what if it’s microchipped? Hmm, they’ve got me there.

Such was the case with Alexander, a cat that got out of its Mount Laurel home. He slipped through a screen door two years ago and took off. The family tried posters. The family tried searching. Whenever they saw an orange-colored cat they would try to see if it was Alexander.

Then one day recently they got a call out of the blue from the Animal Welfare Association. It’s the group that planted a microchip in Alexander years ago. It seems someone turned the cat in to the Burlington County Animal Shelter. There they had scanned its microchip. They almost didn’t get the cat back because the owners didn’t register the chip in their name. The shelter could have let it drop but didn’t. They learned the chip was put in at a public pet clinic by the AWA, and they contacted them. The AWA did a bit more digging and found the name of the owner and contacted her.

So the mystery of where this cat has been for the last two years will probably never be solved. He was found two miles away from his home. A home he’s been brought back to.

Let’s hope it sticks.

My brother once had a cat that was not only chipped but had a GPS tracking device on it. I’m not kidding. They have those. For no particular reason this cat ran off one day and ended up a few miles away at some strange woman’s house. She cared for the cat overnight and was going to take it to a shelter the next day but my brother showed up having tracked it through gps. She gladly handed over the cat.

A week later the cat took off again. Wouldn’t you know it made its way back to that very same woman’s house having only been there once. My brother and this woman never exchanged numbers because they never thought this would happen again. She took care of the cat until he showed up for it again.

There was a third escape which had my brother tracking this cat through back yards and hopping over fences as it apparently tried to find this home yet again. He caught it halfway there.

The fourth time the cat got out it made it all the way back to the woman’s home. My brother was sick of chasing it and the woman took a liking to it. You guessed it. She agreed to take over ownership.

I always thought that had to be a blow to my brother’s self-esteem.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.