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| Chaos, seated under the chair, and Cabbie prepare to go home with their owner, Jeanette Schultz, after being reunited. |
Since mid-July, Best Friends Animal Society has been working near Pahrump, Nev., at FLOCK (For the Love of Cats and Kittens), providing care and medical treatment for more than 400 cats and kittens rescued from substandard conditions. As part of routine treatment, each cat has been scanned for microchip identification. Twelve cats have had positive hits.
Now two of those cats have been reunited with their owner, Jeanette Schultz of Las Vegas.
Cabbie and Chaos disappeared from Schultz’s yard more than two years ago, despite the fact that they were wearing collars and tags and had been implanted with microchip identification. Schultz searched local animal shelters and contacted groups that trap feral cats, but never found her pets. She never adopted any other animals.
Last week, Schultz received a call from Best Friends Animal Society staff person Whitney Jones, who has been working at the FLOCK site. “I called Jeanette and told her I had two cats registered in her name,” Jones said. “She caught her breath and said, ‘Oh, God, that was two years ago.’ And then she started crying.”
Schultz drove out to the site immediately to pick up her cats. Chaos, a 5-year-old gray and white mischief-maker, as Schultz described him, took one look at Schultz and started purring. Cabbie, a 15-year-old orange tabby, settled down in her lap. “I’ve got my kids back,” Schultz said, “and from now on, they are indoor kids.”
As Schultz asked Chaos and Cabbie if they were ready to leave, a black-and-brown mackerel tabby looked up and stepped forward as if to say, yes, me, too. So now Schultz’s family includes three cats.