Last September, Kim Disney’s 4-year-old cat, Studly, escaped from her room at a Motel 6 in Richmond, Ind. The curious cat climbed into a small hole in the bathroom and began wandering in the crawl space under the motel. Disney could not stay until he was retrieved, and reluctantly returned home to Vermont, the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press reports.
Before she left, Disney left her contact information with the motel. “After I left there I called every day for a few days,” she said. “Then I thought, ‘You’re just being a pest.’”
Motel staff, however, continued to look for her cat. Guests reported hearing meows inside their rooms, and a housekeeper noticed the black cat curled up underneath a grate at the end of the building.
That’s when Jason McNamara, a Motel 6 maintenance worker, became involved. He called Disney two weeks after Studly went missing to tell her the cat had been found. Then he began the process of arranging to have the cat sent home.
McNamara made arrangements to have the cat flown home to Vermont, including purchasing a cat carrier, acquiring a health certificate and taking the cat to the airport. “This guy did all this,” Disney told the Burlington Free Press. “He was very sympathetic and he said, ‘I want you to have your cat back.’”
For his efforts, Disney rewarded McNamara with $750, but McNamara considered the favor something any pet lover would have done. “I’ve lost dogs before,” he said. “I could understand what I would feel like.”