Posted on 06/30/2016 1:40:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
One cat.
Two families.
And, a whole lot of mystery about what happened over the past two and a half years.
One woman said her cat went missing in September of 2013.
Another woman said a cat was begging to come into her home at exactly the same time.
She and her husband let it in and kept the cat for two and a half years, claiming they couldn’t locate the owner.
Meanwhile, the original owner has been living three doors away from the cat and never knew it all this time
Joey is the Himalayan cat at the center of this tale, and he is tugging at the heart strings of two Bloomingdale families.
Joey was adopted by Nichole Milone in March of 2011.
With taxes, she paid $1,100 for him and has the papers to prove he was micro chipped.
But, Shawnie and Steve Godke have been caring for Joey for the last two and half years, after the white cat darkened their door day after day, they claim.
Shawnie said the cat was abused, neglected and unwanted.
2013 photos show Joey when his fur was matted, dirty and he was filled with burrs.
That cat, she and her husband contend, found them.
“He was trying to come in for months upon months upon months,” she said. “And, we said ‘Here is food and water, now go home kitty cat. You need to go home to your owners.'”
But, he kept coming back, she said.
Meanwhile, just three doors down in September of 2013, Milone filed a police report, contacted her microchip manufacturer PetKey and posted a hundred or so of these fliers all over town at animal shelters, the police station, even local grocery stores looking for her indoor/outdoor cat Joey.
Nothing.
“I assumed he was probably taken by a coyote or something,” Milone said.
Fast forward two and a half years later to April 29, 2016.
Milone was entering her yard from the back and happened to glance up at her neighbor’s home where she said she saw her own cat.
“What is the possibility that my cat is three doors down from my house this whole time?” Milone said.
Pretty good, apparently.
Milone called police, had his microchip scanned and it was indeed Joey.
Police won’t press charges, and the Godkes refuse to give up their prized pet.
They admit they never reached out to police or any animal shelters when they took Joey in.
They relied solely on the microchip system to reunite this cat with its rightful owner.
One problem: Their vet looked up the chip number on just one website: RFID-USA Microchip Registry – USA.
It showed “microchip unregistered.”
If you plug in that same 10-digit number on the American Animal Hospital Association site, missing cat Joey comes right up and links you with the PetKey people.
And, when you simply Google “Joey missing cat Bloomingdale Illinois,” PetKey’s link is the first one listed.
Also, the Godkes have been calling the cat Joey from almost the start.
How is that possible if they never knew the animal before it showed up at their home?
They said a neighbor in the same subdivision told them about the name.
So, they went with it.
“This neighbor that told our neighbor said that this cat must be from somewhere in the subdivision and that woman heard his name must somehow be Joey,” Shawnie said. “My focus was on what was best for this animal. And, if this person that decided to give it that type of life wanted it back, then that person was going to have to come and make themself available.”
Milone said she has tried.
“I have a cat that has a chip, and I can’t get it back. So, what’s the point of the chip?” Milone said. “I’m not furious. I’m not mad at them. I think it’s sad how they are handling the situation. I feel the same way that they did. He was part of my family.”
So, what now?
Police said there is no criminal intent in this case.
They refuse to press charges.
Both sides have hired lawyers.
They both want Joey the Cat.
In fact, the Godkes have even requested a no-trespass order from police so the Milone family risks arrest if they try to go to the Godke home.
A “for sale” sign already sits in the Godkes front yard.
Shared cat custody not a likely resolution.
Well, King Solomon would have the solution: cut the cat in half.
I wonder what Solomon would do?
When I was a kid, about 8 to 11, we went on vacation and when we came back our family cat had abandoned us. This traitorous feline had found an older couple that fed him but did not expect anything from him. Cats are just like welfare recipients, they want everything but given nothing!
Sometimes, a cat or a dog makes their own choice about who is going to best care for their needs. Sometimes an animal just wants to change their lifestyle, greater or lesser attention.
Greater or different foods. If you get a second pet, that first one make not like it at all, but may not be the type to fight about it- at first.
Cats sometimes claim more than one family, and just go back and forth. That’s cats for you.
Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.
One cat.
Two families.
Zero paragraphs. ;-)
Guilty of intentional theft. The police are idiots if they buy that they heard the name from a neighbor, yet didn't try to find the owner in the neighborhood. If they can prove a case of neglect, then the authorities can get involved. But the neglect doesn't transfer ownership.
I swear that our cat does this sometimes. He was gone for HOURS one day in December, when it was very, very cold out. Showed up on the porch, and I brought him in, all warm and toasty, he was. Keeps me on my toes to treat him like the special and magnificent animal that he (thinks he) is, right?
I have observed that this is true of indoor cats. Outdoor cats are a different matter entirely.
I think you need to reread the Bible.
Same thing happened with my sister in law’s cat. She was off working all day, and although well fed, wasn’t getting what he figured was his strokes, so he just up and left. Anita was heart broken about her missing cat. Years later she found out it has just moved two blocks over and was living the “good life” with an older couple who catered to his every whim. I like that about cats...they are survivors.
BS. Everyone knows that's NOT how you get a cat to go home.
It’s not rare that a few families share a community cat.
I dunno. We feed several outdoor, presumably homeless cats in the neighborhood. They have the same staff mentality about my wife and I. Lol
I never understand why people let their cats wander around outdoors in a city environment.
Clearly, the people who had originally owned it were not too concerned about it.
They thought a coyote had gotten it!
Why didn't they put out flyers for it?
The cat kept coming back to their home, because they kept feeding it.
==
It used to be sort of common knowlege that if one feeds a ‘stray’ cat, it will take up residence.
Found a very small, very cold, black cat in my yard one December night. Took him in. Starting about a year later, he would disappear for a night or two, sometimes even a month or two. Then, he would be back. I finally put a collar on him. About a month later, he disappeared again. A woman showed up a couple of days later wanting to know why I had put a collar on her cat.
At that point, I knew what was happening. I asked her if her cat had been disappearing every so often for a variable period of time? She said she had. At that point she knew too. We had one cat who commuted between our two homes. He wasn’t any one’s cat but we were his.
This went on for a couple of years more and, then, he left and I never saw him again. Was he hit by a car? Did the other family move and take him with them? Never found out.
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