Wayward cat reunites with family in N. Carolina
Published: April 4, 2006
After spending three weeks hiding in a Checotah motel and a month at a Muskogee veterinary clinic, Ashley the Cat is finally home in North Carolina.
Crystal Fletcher and Emily Farmer, veterinary assistants at Animal Care Clinic of Muskogee, drove more than 1,000 miles to Fuquay-Varina, N.C., last weekend to take Ashley to its owners, John and Tammy Leuthold and their daughter, Kalyn. The two returned to Muskogee Monday morning.
Fletcher said the fluffy black and white cat got a rousing homecoming when they got to the Leuthold house on Saturday afternoon.
“When we pulled up to their house, all the neighbors were out on the porch,” she said. “And Ashley was not upset at all, she knew this was her home.”
“It’s like she knew she was home,” Tammy Leuthold said Monday. “She found my daughter’s bed and decided that was where she was going to sleep.”
Ashley got loose on Feb. 7 when Leuthold and other family members had spent the night at the Eufaula Inn east of Checotah. The Leutholds were moving from California to North Carolina. The cat spent three weeks at the motel before it was found and taken to the Animal Care Clinic.
Fletcher said clinic employees had thought of sending the cat home by airplane and had even made arrangements to fly her home on March 17. Bad weather on the 17th kept them from deciding to make that flight, veterinarian Janet Blake said.
“We were worried about how the flight would be,” Fletcher said. “We had put so much time and effort into getting her, we didn’t want to risk it.”
Fletcher said Ashley remained calm during the whole trip.
Leuthold said she will wait a week or so to get Ashley settled before she takes the cat to her veterinarian. She said she is grateful for the extra miles Fletcher and Farmer went to get Ashley home.
“It’s just phenomenal,” she said. “We need more people like them in the world.”
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
If you like this, you'll love Good Animal News:
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: