Seventeen-year old Phoebe had always been an inside-only cat, so when she turned up missing from her home on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, her family feared the worst. "I really didn't think much about it when our housekeeper mentioned that she hadn't see Phoebe that day," said her owner Lanie, "so we just started looking in her favorite hiding places. It wasn't until we had exhausted the list that I got really scared that she truly was gone." Five year old Lauren tried to comfort her mother, but Lanie was despondent. She and her sister had fallen in love with Phoebe when they spotted the kitten in a store long ago, and had pooled their allowances to make sure she would be part of the family. Now Phoebe was a member of Lanie's family, and she was missing.
After driving around the neighborhood that evening with no luck, and after Phoebe still hadn't returned by Wednesday morning, Lanie went to work right away, making posters with descriptions and photos of Phoebe to hang in the neighborhood. She included two photos of Phoebe, a beautiful seal-point Himalayan, and included information about the time the cat went missing, her age, and the fact that she was unusually small and sported a 'lion cut'. "I was hoping to catch someone's attention as they drove in or out of the neighborhood and really tried to make the posters easy to see." Lanie also contacted the Humane Society of Northeast Texas, but Phoebe was not there.
 When lunch time came on Wednesday and went with no phone calls, Lanie refused to give up and instead decided to make flyers to distribute to each house in the neighborhood. Rainy weather added to the gloom she felt as she stopped at each house to leave a flyer. Hope continued to fade when by dinner time on Wednesday, the rain continued and no one had called. "I was really devastated and couldn't even imagine having to put away Phoebe's things, even her litter box. I just stayed upstairs and cried."
About a half mile away from Lanie's house, the other side of this story was developing. Donny, a local business owner, had mentioned to his wife during lunch on Wednesday that he had seen a kitten run down his driveway and disappear as he was leaving for work that morning. Oddly enough, their cat Allie, adopted from the HSNTX (see August 30, 2006 story) had been vocalizing loudly in the early morning hours both Tuesday and Wednesday, apparently reacting to something outside. Both Donny and his wife arrived home late and didn't see the flyer in their mailbox until almost 9:00 pm. Donny immediately recognized Phoebe as being the kitten he had seen, and called the number on the flyer. Lanie's hope soared as she received the first word about her beloved Phoebe, got the address, and immediately drove in the rain to the house.
As Lanie got out of her car, she called Phoebe's name and the little cat came running down the driveway for a very special (but wet!) reunion . Lauren was already in bed when Lanie returned home with Phoebe, so this little girl and her baby brother John William got a very special surprise when they were awakened the next morning. 
Allie has not vocalized in the early mornings since Phoebe was reunited with her family, so it is clear that she was reacting to this small cat on the other side of the windows, alone in the outdoors as she had been when she was found and brought to the HSNTX three years earlier.
Phoebe was a very luck cat to have survived her experience in the great outdoors full of cars, dogs, and wild animals including red foxes common to the neighborhood. Lanie can be credited for doing all the right things once she realized her pet was missing: immediately contacting the shelter, putting up posters, and distributing flyers. Contacting the animal shelter quickly is important since animal shelters like the HSNTX have minimum hold times after which the pet can be put up for adoption. The pet may even become an unfortunate statistic if no one claims or adopts it before room must be made for incoming animals. Posting a lost ad in the newspaper and monitoring the found ads can also bridge the gap between a pet that is reunited with its owner and one that remains homeless.
Lanie's persistence to find her beloved cat paid off. However, Lanie has now taken an extra precaution by introducing Phoebe to a breakaway cat collar and tag. The HSNTX receives cats and dogs every day that are obviously owned and well-cared for but have no identification and no way to tell anyone where they belong. A microchip is another valuable tool to ensure that lost pets like Phoebe can be reunited with their owners when they are received by a facility like the HSNTX that scans pets for microships. We hope that Phoebe's experience will encourage other pet owners to ensure their pets have collars and tags and/or microchips and to take the steps that Lanie took to give her Phoebe every chance to find her way home and celebrate her 18th birthday as she did on April 14.
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