Missing Cat (full story)
Missing cat takes 2,000-mile trip to Ohio
Missing Burmese saved by UA student
Saturday, November 11, 2006
April McClellan-Copeland
Plain Dealer Reporter
Akron
The long-awaited reunion of Simon and Garfunkel will take place in Los Angeles, but no tickets will be sold.
That's because Simon and Garfunkel, in this case, are cats that were separated last summer, when Simon jumped out of the window of a sport utility vehicle at a Los Angeles mall and seemed to vanish.
Then, this fall, Simon's heartbroken owner, Robyn Schwartz, got a telephone call from a stranger with a story that was hard to believe -- Simon was alive and more than 2,000 miles east in Copley Township.
I saw the 330 area code and figured it was a wrong number," Schwartz said.
"The woman said, 'Hi, my name is Kim. Are you missing a cat? If you are, I think we might have your cat. But the bad news is, he is in Ohio.' I started shaking and crying. Part of me thought it was a scam," Schwartz said.
It all started on a scorching L.A. day in July, when Schwartz took her three cats, including Simon and Garfunkel, and her three Chihuahuas to the veterinarian for checkups. On the way, she stopped at a mall to grab lunch.
But Simon, who already was known as an escape artist, jumped out one of the truck's windows - opened with an assist by one of the Chihuahuas, Schwartz believes.
"When I saw that the window was open, I started praying," Schwartz said. "I was screaming and crying."
She searched every floor of the parking garage. She slept on a bench outside the mall that evening. But Simon never turned up.
After several weeks of searching animal shelters and lost-pet Web sites for her 17-year-old Burmese, Schwartz gave up. She concluded that the declawed housecat could not have survived.
About that time, 20-year-old Bria Roberts, a junior at the University of Akron, was in Los Angeles doing acting stints and modeling. While there, she heard a gruff meow while walking through a mall parking garage and noticed an emaciated cat.
"He was really skinny," Roberts recalled in an interview Friday. "I picked him up and noticed that his eye was so infected that it was popping out. I am definitely an animal lover. I will rescue any animal that comes to me."
Roberts said she immediately tried to find the cat's owner. She went to a pet store in the mall but was told no one had reported a missing Burmese.
So she kept the cat in a Los Angeles hotel room, where she nursed him back to health. And at the end of the summer, she took the cat with her on the long drive home, with stops in Las Vegas and the Rocky Mountains.
Once Roberts was back in Copley Township in September, her mother, Kim Shama-Hanna, took one last stab at locating the stray cat's owner. Searching a lost-pet Web site, she hit pay dirt: a photo of a very familiar-looking Burmese named Simon, and a phone number for Schwartz.
Shama-Hanna made the call that Schwartz said restored her faith in the kindness of strangers and proved that miracles do happen.
"There are times in life when you meet genuinely wonderful human beings," Schwartz said. "Bria and Kim are those kind of people."
Simon's travel arrangements have yet to be worked out. Roberts might fly with Simon to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks. Or Simon might make the $300 flight by himself on Sunday.
"He's my baby and I love him," said Schwartz. "Whatever I have to pay, I'll pay."
Missing Burmese saved by UA student
Saturday, November 11, 2006
April McClellan-Copeland
Plain Dealer Reporter
Akron
The long-awaited reunion of Simon and Garfunkel will take place in Los Angeles, but no tickets will be sold.
That's because Simon and Garfunkel, in this case, are cats that were separated last summer, when Simon jumped out of the window of a sport utility vehicle at a Los Angeles mall and seemed to vanish.
Then, this fall, Simon's heartbroken owner, Robyn Schwartz, got a telephone call from a stranger with a story that was hard to believe -- Simon was alive and more than 2,000 miles east in Copley Township.
I saw the 330 area code and figured it was a wrong number," Schwartz said.
"The woman said, 'Hi, my name is Kim. Are you missing a cat? If you are, I think we might have your cat. But the bad news is, he is in Ohio.' I started shaking and crying. Part of me thought it was a scam," Schwartz said.
It all started on a scorching L.A. day in July, when Schwartz took her three cats, including Simon and Garfunkel, and her three Chihuahuas to the veterinarian for checkups. On the way, she stopped at a mall to grab lunch.
But Simon, who already was known as an escape artist, jumped out one of the truck's windows - opened with an assist by one of the Chihuahuas, Schwartz believes.
"When I saw that the window was open, I started praying," Schwartz said. "I was screaming and crying."
She searched every floor of the parking garage. She slept on a bench outside the mall that evening. But Simon never turned up.
After several weeks of searching animal shelters and lost-pet Web sites for her 17-year-old Burmese, Schwartz gave up. She concluded that the declawed housecat could not have survived.
About that time, 20-year-old Bria Roberts, a junior at the University of Akron, was in Los Angeles doing acting stints and modeling. While there, she heard a gruff meow while walking through a mall parking garage and noticed an emaciated cat.
"He was really skinny," Roberts recalled in an interview Friday. "I picked him up and noticed that his eye was so infected that it was popping out. I am definitely an animal lover. I will rescue any animal that comes to me."
Roberts said she immediately tried to find the cat's owner. She went to a pet store in the mall but was told no one had reported a missing Burmese.
So she kept the cat in a Los Angeles hotel room, where she nursed him back to health. And at the end of the summer, she took the cat with her on the long drive home, with stops in Las Vegas and the Rocky Mountains.
Once Roberts was back in Copley Township in September, her mother, Kim Shama-Hanna, took one last stab at locating the stray cat's owner. Searching a lost-pet Web site, she hit pay dirt: a photo of a very familiar-looking Burmese named Simon, and a phone number for Schwartz.
Shama-Hanna made the call that Schwartz said restored her faith in the kindness of strangers and proved that miracles do happen.
"There are times in life when you meet genuinely wonderful human beings," Schwartz said. "Bria and Kim are those kind of people."
Simon's travel arrangements have yet to be worked out. Roberts might fly with Simon to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks. Or Simon might make the $300 flight by himself on Sunday.
"He's my baby and I love him," said Schwartz. "Whatever I have to pay, I'll pay."
posted by Kristen at 11:25 AM
3 Comments:
He'd probably have been in a less bad state if he hadn't been declawed. Here in the UK no one does declawing. Still, at least this story has a happy ending eh.
You are right about the declawing. I had not thought of that.
The declawing surely made him more vulnerable and unable to fend for food once he was lost but it's also part of why we continued looking for an owner! We knew that he must have had a home since he was declawed and spade.
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