A young woman who lost her best friend and pet cat found the cat again on a “Lost Cat” poster. When the cat then found his way home to the woman, she refused to ‘return’ the pet to the neighbour who she suspects stole the cat weeks ago. She has now turned to Reddit to determine whether she is in the right or the wrong.
The author starts off by explaining that several months ago, she received a kitten as a birthday present. She named her cat ‘Thomas O’Malley’, and was delighted to have a furry little friend.
Unfortunately, not long after getting her kitten, Thomas mysteriously disappeared. It was a ‘baffling’ experience, as there were no holes in their door screens, and they couldn’t find how the kitten could have gotten out.
After weeks of searching, the author assumed it was a lost cause, but then one day the author and her father stumbled upon something that changed everything:
“We drove past a lost cat sign and both of us freaked. It looked SO much like Thomas O'Malley. My dad wrote the number down, thinking maybe he'd call. Out of curiosity he looks up the number to find out, and it's the friend of my mother that lives two streets over!”
Losing a precious family pet is an absolutely devastating situation. The American Humane Society advises that if a pet goes missing, an owner should get signs up around the neighborhood and hop on some community boards as soon as possible. This greatly enhances an owner’s chances of finding their beloved pet again.
Just a few nights later, Thomas O’Malley appeared back at the author’s home, and the reunion was absolutely precious:
“I was so happy I was crying. He was vibrating because he was purring so loud. I thought it was a happy ending, I had my best buddy back.”
That said, the family friend who had put up the signs visited not long after, and as soon as they entered the house the cat ran away from them, terrified. The family friends argued that Thomas O’Malley was their cat, even after the author’s father produced paperwork to prove the cat was his daughter’s.
Though the author suspected that the family friends were the ones who stole her cat months ago, she and her father didn’t feel comfortable accusing them as such. Regardless, they’ve flat-out refused to ‘return’ the cat to the family friends.
Unfortunately, pet theft is not an uncommon occurrence. The Blue Cross advises that the best way to protect against pet theft is to ensure your pets have a collar on with ID, and to ensure the pet is not left out unattended in a place where they could be picked up and taken away.
What do you think?
Is the author entirely justified to keep her pet cat, considering it’s obvious that it’s her cat, and the pet made it clear where he wants to live?
Or should she return the cat to the family friends, since they were the last ones to have the cat, and she can’t definitively prove that they stole her cat, to begin with?
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