- Idaho, USA -
On September 19, 2022, a couple of Good Samaritans found a cat on the side of the road and dropped her off at Kootenai Humane Society in Hayden.
Staff scanned the furbaby, a short-haired, tabby-colored domestic housecat, learned her name was Harriet, and shockingly discovered that Harriet’s guardian listed on the chip was in California.
The animal shelter called 57-years-old Susan Moore and told her they had her cat.
Mrs. Moore was understandably confused and did not immediately understand what was going on. She even told the caller they had the wrong number as there is no Hayden in California.
The caller then said she was calling from Idaho.
As the conversation unfolded, the mystery was gradually being solved and Mrs. Moore said: “I’d like to know how the heck that cat got all the way to Idaho.”
Mrs. Moore explained to the animal shelter staff that she lives on 41 acres outside of Sanger, California, and that she had adopted Harriet in 2010, to join her family and their dogs.
At the time Harriet was just a kitten and she was very sick. The shelter told her Harriet had feline leukemia and suggested that she choose another cat.
Mrs. Moore told them: “I don't want another cat.” So, she brought her furbaby home and took care of her. Mrs. Moore told USA Today that she raised Harriet in her office for the first month, then, she became healthy enough to be moved to the family’s ranch where she spent lots of time outdoors with her canine siblings. Harriet sadly went missing one night back in 2014.
Mrs. Moore and her husband, Brian Ellison, searched near their home, checked lost pet websites, contacted shelters, and registered with HomeAgain, a recovery service for lost pets.
Mr. Ellison hypothesized that a coyote had gotten Harriet. Mrs. Moore theorized that after Harriet wandered off, somebody picked her up in California, kept her as a pet and later moved to Idaho, where she wandered off again.
After recovering from the unbelievable news that Harriet was still alive, the next step was to get Harriet back home. Mrs. Moore asked her brother Steve Swarts who lives in Idaho if he would pick up Harriet from the shelter and fly her to California. At the same time, she realized that Harriet, now 13 years old, may not even remember her after being separated from her for so long.
According to The Washington Post, Ms. Maureen Wright, one of the shelter’s volunteers, saw Harriet waiting in a shelter cage and immediately wanted to bring her home.
With Mrs. Moore’s blessing, Maureen took home Harriet and renamed her Isis, after the Egyptian goddess.
Maureen lives on a mountain ridge in Hauser, where “she fosters older cats and dogs typically for the remainder of their lives”, reports The Washington Post.
Isis is now part of a new family in her new hopefully furever home with four elderly dogs and four outdoor foster cats who live in a heated catio.
Talking about Isis Maureen said: “She’s beautiful, regal, and just an absolute lover. So, she has a home with me for the rest of her life. She’s off the market.”
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