If cats could talk, a local kitty would have quite a story to tell about his recent summer adventure.
New Westminster resident Josh Peake thought his cat Charlie was gone for good after he snuck out a window at his parents' house in the summer, but he was recently reunited with his kitty thanks to a dedicated cat-lover in Burnaby.
"I didn't think I'd ever see Charlie again, but I did know that no matter where he ended up, he would be fine," Peake said. "He's always been an adventurous cat, and sometimes days would go by when I wouldn't see him, then he'd turn up as if nothing happened."
Burnaby residents living in the vicinity of Cariboo Road and 16th Avenue spotted the black cat with white spots a few months back.
Darlene Fischer first noticed the cat when he was drinking water from a leak in a hose. The cat began appearing more regularly at Fischer's complex, and neighbours were occasionally feeding it.
"They thought it lived in the complex. It was showing up in the morning, at night, at really odd hours," she said. "I fed it for about two weeks. Every day, it would arrive like clockwork, morning and night. Then it started coming four times a day. I knew it had to be homeless."
Hoping to find the cat's owner, Fischer posted signs throughout the neighbourhood and on every online pet site she could think of.
"The only calls I was getting were from people who had seen the kitty in the neighbourhood," she said. "None from the owner."
After some effort, Fischer managed to catch the cat in her pet carrier, take him to the vet, identify him via his ear tattoo and contact his owner.
"He was completely shocked," she said of Peake's reaction. "Charlie had been missing for four months. I don't know how this cat survived."
Fischer notes that her Burnaby neighbourhood is "ripe with coyotes" and the cat had been on its own for several months.
Fischer was pleased to be able to return Charlie to Peake, who had owned the six-year-old cat since he was a young kitten.
"As soon as Charlie heard Josh's voice, he almost jumped into Josh's arms," she said of their reunion. "It was so, so, so cute."
Peake, who has moved to Sapperton since Charlie's adventure, said the cat took a few days to settle in but has returned to his usual mischievous self.
"Anything sitting on a counter or table, be it a DVD case or a coffee mug, does not belong there, but instead it belongs on the floor," he said. "I've been woken up countless times at night by the crash or rattle of something he's knocked over."
While Charlie has settled nicely into his new home, he's missed by some of the acquaintances he made during his summer adventure.
"My little kitty looks for him daily," Fischer said. "She stares out the window for hours looking for him. So do my neighbours' cats."
A lifelong cat owner, Fischer said she would hunt high and low for her cat if it got lost - and was only doing the same for someone else.
"I was really happy to do that," said the Burnaby resident. "He is happy to be back home. I was happy to contribute to that."
