This Cute Cat Was Reunited With His Family Thanks to the Internet

This is the story of a "cute kitty" I saw while eating a turkey sandwich on the patio.

The cat, which I later learned is named Cloudy, nuzzled up against my feet while I ate, so I decided to take a photo with my phone. I then posted that photo on Davis Patch so that the world could see this little guy. It felt like a very Co-op moment, and I wanted to document it. 

I learned after posting that photo that Cloudy had apparently entered the Co-op and caused some mischief near the deli several times that afternoon. 

Later that night, I got an email from a woman named Nicole, who said that the “cute kitty” she saw on Davis Patch looked very much like her cat, which had recently lost his collar and disappeared. I forwarded her email to Julie Cross, who works for the Co-op and  . The first of the two stories below comes from Julie's perspective. The second comes from Nicole -- Cloudy's owner. 

Hi Justin -- Cloudy made three dashes into the deli, which made life interesting for all the employees, who very much enjoyed thwarting him and carrying him back outside while getting cuddles from him. My husband, who had stopped to adjust his bike at the bike station, says Cloudy also had a nice climb in the peach tree there, and seemed to be enjoying himself.

Interestingly, my last encounter with one of Nicole's cats involved her persuading me to carry her elderly cat, Sir Cuddles, from Davis to North Carolina via airplane. Nicole was then 8 months pregnant with her first baby, and I'd promised to come see her before the baby was born. 

Animal rescues are all part of the co-op day: the most interesting one was the cockatoo I found in a tree on my way to the store one day. He obligingly flew down and sat in my front bike basket. I wheeled him to the store, showed him to the troop of kids waiting for me to give him a store tour and handed him off to our Marketing Manager, who took him to the vet and borrowed a cage. That bird turned out to be named Found In Driveway, and his owner picked him up and carried him home in a Co-op paper bag.

Happy Monday!

Julie

Now, here’s Nicole's story about life with a mischievous cat like Cloudy:

It was just perfect that it was through Julie that I got Cloudy back! She's is my A-1 top favorite person, and this was sheer coincidence, since she'd never met Cloudy before!

Cloudy came from the Orphan Kitten Project on campus. He and his brother were bound under a bush in the Vet Med parking lot, about a week old, clearly dumped there. They were both ill, and Cloudy was on IV for 10 days and didn't look like he was going to make it. But the wonderful vet students all took care of these two, and apparently on day 10, Cloudy sprang to life and decided to be a kitten! Then, because it was the onset of summer, he got swapped around the various vet students, taken up and down the state with them, and wound up back in Davis last August when we adopted them. 

Since this winter though, Cloudy has taken to dashing out of the house with our kids, and his adventures have taken him further and further. We live on Oak Ave right near campus. One time, a student found him wandering the aisles of Rite Aid, and took him home with her, and posted an ad on craigslist. She was very sad when he got picked up. Another time it was the ladies of Omega Phi, where I found him being hand fed fresh chicken morsels from their plates. One time it was the gentlemen of Theta Chi who brought him home to us. One night we got a got from G Street Pub at 1am about him. Just last week, I had to go to the pound to get him, he managed to slip out without his collar on and was apparently turned in by a student living in Segundo Hall. Now this.

With my kids, having indoor cats is near impossible, they go in and out of the backyard 50 times a day. Lucky for me the cats aren't hunters. But Cloudy has allowed me to meet lots of neighbors. His specialty is scoping out homes with cat doors and inviting himself in. He sometimes comes home smelling of cigarettes, other times perfume. I have no idea what to do to make him want to stay close more, I'm working on fattening him up to slow him down, and I hope this is just some adolescent phase.

In this case, on Friday morning he slipped out. He was wearing his collar and tag, but the next morning the mail carrier found his collar a block away and put it in my mailbox, so I knew he was on the lamb again. I put up my craigslist ad again, then went on patch and found the photo you took. I e-mailed Julie right away, but being impatient, I also called the co-op (one of the few numbers in the whole world that I know by heart) and the person who answered put Christal on the line right away. She and I had a terrific chat, she called her boyfriend Johnny at home, and I went to pick him up at their home. Johnny had even bought him vitamins, and made up flyers to post! See how amazing co-op people are? I love Davis!

Nicole

If Cloudy's story didn't just brighten your day a little bit, then I wish you luck. If you'd like to get in on the cat-photo viewing, click one of these links:  

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