Posted on 05/14/2009 2:20:01 PM PDT by JoeProBono
When Charlie, a 5-year-old black and white cat, went missing two years ago, Kristian Codero and her family never gave up hope of finding him again.
“Every time we would see a black and white cat, we had to stop and see if it was Charlie,” Kristian said.
Charlie has distinctive markings on the underside of his chin, but each time the Coderos looked under a cat’s chin, it turned out not to be Charlie.
Not knowing what had happened to Charlie made the loss especially hard for 12-year-old Kallie Codero.
“She’s cried ever since the day we lost him,” Kristian said, adding that they feared Charlie had become the victim of a coyote attack.
Last week, on a trip to Petsmart to pick up food for the guinea pig, the family’s two-year dream was realized when 10-year-old Karrah spotted the wayward Charlie in the window of the Field Haven Feline Rescue booth.
“He lifted his head, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s him,’ ” Kristian said. “I knew it was Charlie, and I asked the (Petsmart) worker if I could get in there, but he said only Field Haven has the key.”
Kristian called the number on the window, but it was after hours, and she got a recording.
“I sat down. I wouldn’t leave until I had talked to someone,” Kristian said.
Fortunately, a separate phone number was posted for after-hours calls, and Kristian got in touch with Field Haven, setting up a time to meet the next day and bring Charlie home.
Shortly after noon on Thursday, Joy Smith and Jen Paul from Field Haven met Kristian at Petsmart.
It was a tearful reunion as Smith handed Charlie to Kristian, reuniting the cat with his owner after a nearly two-year odyssey.
The Codero family moved to Lincoln in January, 2007, and Charlie, who liked to spend time in the garage, went missing six months later.
The Coderos took repeated trips to the Placer County SPCA and made calls to animal control and other shelters, but none bore fruit.
Field Haven rescued Charlie outside The Home Depot on October, 2007, finding him skinny and hungry.
“Charlie never was much of a hunter,” Kristian said. “His brother was always the hunter.”
Both Charlie and his brother have belonged to the Coderos since they were kittens.
When Field Haven couldn’t find an owner, Charlie was put up for adoption, and went to live with another Lincoln family.
Charlie, however, had “litterbox issues,” according to Smith, and the distraught family brought him back after a year.
The “litterbox issues” warranted a series of medical tests, but nothing was physically wrong with Charlie, who spent most of his time at Field Haven quietly.
For one week, Charlie was put into the booth at Petsmart, and it happened to be the week the Coderos needed to buy food for the guinea pig.
“This is just too crazy,” Kristian said. “It was meant to be.”
As soon as he saw Kristian, Charlie came to life, leaving his quiet side behind as he recognized his long-lost family.
“He’s never been this perky with us,” Paul said.
Kristian hugged Charlie to her chest and stroked his head as Smith and Paul watched, alternately fighting tears and laughing.
“We always say that miracles happen at Field Haven,” Paul said. “This is just another one.”
That really depends a lot on where you live. All my cats are free to go outdoors whenever they like, via their little cat door, and in nice weather generally choose to spend most of their time outside, yet they've all lived nice long lives.
The most recent death among my cats was 21 years old when he died, of a pulmonary embolism. He was about 2 years old when I found him, clearly abandoned (more like he found me -- kept following me into my apartment and declining to leave). He'd obviously had a home at some point, because he was neutered and declawed. He remained a largely outdoor cat, despite being declawed, and despite a bad broken leg at age 19 (happened indoors, due to osteoporosis) that required surgery to repair with a metal plate and screws, and left him able walk fine, but only jump a little, and not run at all. The day before his sudden death, he was choosing to stroll around outside, happily sniffing out the smells of returning spring.
The youngest cat deaths I've experienced were both 14, one of kidney cancer, and one hit by a car, in the latter case with no external sign of injury, and he was able to go curl up in a favorite spot under a neighbor's car, and apparently just lost consciousness and passed away quickly from internal bleeding -- looked like he was sleeping comfortably, in his normal curled up position, but the vet confirmed based on asphalt under his claws that he'd been hit by a car. He absolutely refused to stay inside. I'd tried to do it briefly a couple of years earlier, when he needed to get antibiotics twice a day for a couple of weeks. On day one, he promptly set to work destroying the drywall around the locked cat door. By the time I discovered his little project a few hours later, he was very close to have the whole frame of the door removed from the wall. I'm sure he much preferred to go the way he did, than two live a few more years in gradually declining health, and ending up spending at least a few days in the vet hospital with some final illness.
Of the 4 cats I currently have, one timid little thing chooses to stay indoors, except for rare and brief ventures out onto the back porch. One that I just adopted last summer is about 17 per the vet, and chooses to spend about half his time outdoors, though he always sleeps indoors with me. The other two -- one about 12 and the other about 5 -- stay outside nearly 100% of the time, except when it gets really, really cold and windy out. I have a covered litterbox on the back porch with a heating pad in it during the winter, and they prefer to sleep outside in the box, curled up all squished together.
With the exception of the one who chooses to stay in, my cats so clearly prefer the outdoors, and so clearly derive much joy from their adventures out there, that I couldn't even consider keeping them prisoners indoors.
Cats are special because you can’t train a cat to ‘stay’ in the yard ...any you can’t tie them up...and a fence isn’t much help...as they are with a dog. They are special because God gave them claws, hunting abilities, the love of killing rats and night vision for a reason...not to sit on the sofa and watch tv. WHen I grew up, most people didn’t want cats in the house—they were critters and supposed to be outside.....my father never allowed it. Now, all of a sudden people like you guys with your intense sense of MY LAWN..MY LAND....KEEP OUT....seem to want to change nature when it comes to cats. No complaints of birds though.....the most diseased ridden creatures of all. You’re unreasonable.
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