Missing Cat Shows up at Shelter – Where Her Owner Volunteers!

By Caroline Golon

When her cat went missing, sixteen-year-old Maddie Eustis had given up hope that she’d ever see her beloved Sydney again. But in a happy turn of events, Sydney showed up….at the shelter where Maddie volunteers!

Nineteen-year-old Sydney had somehow escaped the house while guests were visiting. While she sometimes spent time in the backyard, this was the first time Sydney had left the property.  “She must have slipped the fence,” Maddie tells Kim Kalunian of the Rhody Beat, which first published the story.

For days, the Eustis family looked for Sydney. Maddie, a volunteer at the East Greenwich Animal Protection League, contacted the head of cat adoption at the shelter, Nancy Dyer, to ask her to be on the lookout for Sydney. Time passed and the family nearly gave up hope of ever finding their sweet girl again.

Two weeks later, a small cat was found wandering the neighborhood by the local animal control. The friendly kitty spent three days at the local animal hospital, where vets estimated her age to be around 8 years old. Soon the cat was moved to the Greenwich Animal Protection League, where she was renamed Juliette and waited to be adopted.

One day, Maddie came in for her volunteer shift. She spent time with the adoptable kitties, talking with other volunteers about her heartbreak over losing Sydney. When she peeked in the cage of one new arrival, Maddie told the Rhody Beat that she saw the cat’s age on the sign and thought, “How are we going to get another older cat adopted?”

Maddie says the cat looked a bit like Sydney. And, when the little kitty lifted up her head, Maddie realized it was Sydney! The cat’s mistaken age had thrown everyone off and no one realized it could be Maddie’s cat.

“I just burst into tears,” Maddie told the Rhody Beat. “I thought, oh my god, that’s her!”

The rest of the family was similarly emotional and Sydney is now back at home, enjoying all the extra attention and spoiling.