KENNEBUNK, Maine — Julie Davis, of Biddeford, knows her indoor cat should have had tags or a microchip, but that doesn’t help her now. She would just like to be reunited with her cat.
Through a series of circumstances, Lucky, her 12-year-old white and spotted cat, has been adopted by another family, leaving Davis and her other cat feeling a little lost without her.
Davis said she lives in a third floor apartment in Biddeford with her two indoor cats. One day a few weeks ago she accidentally left the door open as she was bringing groceries up the stairs. The renters in the apartment below her had recently moved out, and the apartment was open while cleaners and painters worked in the space.
Lucky slipped out of Davis’s open door and found her way to the apartment below. It was a few days before Davis was sure her cat was missing.
By then a painter in the apartment below noticed the cat in the vacant apartment and contacted the landlord, who assumed the previous tenants had abandoned the cat. The landlord called the Animal Control Officer to pick up the cat, and brought her to the Animal Welfare Society in Kennebunk.
AWS Director Abigail Smith said the Animal Control Officer brought the cat to the shelter on Oct. 20, with no tags or ID or a microchip. She said they check every intake animal against their list from callers who have reported a pet missing, and they had no call for this cat. She said the cat was held for the state mandated 48 hours, and then added to the AWS cat adoption page. A few days later she was adopted.
Smith said these kinds of things don’t happen very often, but they do happen. She said she feels sad when they do, but when families come into the AWS to adopt a pet, they need to feel assured that they are adopting a “forever pet.”
“Shelters need to feel like safe places for people to come when they adopt a pet, and it can’t be ‘here’s your forever pet, unless this, this or this happens,’” she said.
Smith said she feels sad for Davis, and if Davis can locate her cat privately, she hopes for the happiest ending possible, but she maintains that the shelter did nothing wrong.
“If we made a mistake, we would work to make it right, but we did nothing wrong here,” Smith said.
Smith said for AWS to continue to save lives, people have to want to adopt from them, and they have to be reliable, and maintain trust from the community.
“Why would you adopt from a place when you have to say to your kids three days later ‘we have to give Fluffy back’?” Smith said.
She emphasized three key prevention tips to keep your pets safe and improve the odds of their safe return if they do get out. She said the first thing is identification. Even if it’s an indoor pet, it should be micro chipped. All pets adopted from AWS are micro chipped, and AWS will microchip pets for people. She offered to microchip Davis’ other indoor cat for free to prevent another tragic escape, but Davis declined, Smith said.
If you have any information on Davis’ cat, contact Coast Star reporter Donna Buttarazzi at dbuttarazzi@seacoastonline.com.