Well, this is the final update on Milo. He has been returned to his owner. Uninjured, just with arthritis and afraid.
This started out very differently this morning. We finally found a rescue that would take him and make sure he was fine and adoptable. I loaded him all up with his blanket and got him in the car and headed off. We get there and fill out all the paperwork and when they saw he was found in another county they refused to take him. All they said was they were not allowed to take cats lost less than 30 days from out of the county they were lost in (some weird Michigan law). I guess that was a sign. So back home we came.
I cleaned out his crate and gave him fresh litter, washed his food and water bowls and a new blanket. While I was doing this my phone rang. I never get phone calls in the day that aren't spam so I ignored it. Spent another 20 minutes of quality time with him giving him ear rubs and belly scratches and pets all around. Again, he seemed totally fine like nothing was wrong. Was walking fine, rolling around fine, acting like a normal cat. Get him settled in and go back inside and check my phone.
I had 3 missed calls and several text messages from when we were gone (I rarely take my phone with me). While we were gone someone had responded to one of the lost FB posts we posted with a pic of their cat that went missing last Thursday. Literally posted while we were filling out paperwork at the rescue. I check my messages, see a pic of Milo and immediately know it's the same cat. You can just tell. Check my voicemail. Return some phone calls and get his owners name and address.
The story goes that his owners SIL likes to leave doors open and Milo scooted out. Normally he only goes onto the back deck but this time he decided to venture off. He didn't venture far as we found him just across the street. But this street is a very busy 4 lane highway. Once across the highway he then crossed another 4 lane road to get to the store parking lot we found him in. I would venture to say he travelled Thursday night when traffic was at a minimum and come Friday morning he got scared by the people and cars (we found him about 8:30am).
Anyway, his name is Milo. He's 12 years old and has arthritis in his back legs and hips. He likes to lounge around and catnip. He certainly did like to perk up for the catnip we gave him. He's been with his current owner for 9 of those years.
But the world works in mysterious ways. His owner doesn't have FB and was told by her DIL about a post a coworker shared. Then the DIL responded to the group post about the cat and it was just a long line of pieces that just kind of fell together. Top that with the timing of the rescue not taking him. Everything just kind of fell into place. As they say, everything happens for a reason.
Thank you guys for the generous offers to help out if we needed it. Give those to your local shelters and rescues as they all need it. With the pandemic and kitten season being in full swing, they try to do what they can with what they have which is unfortunately, not enough. I'm glad to see there's still some good in the world. And give lots of love to all your fur babies whether they meow or bark. Thank you all again.
And a pic of Milo before his great journey:
