Missing 5 Years, Colorado Cat Is Found On Manhattan Street

Willow, the cross-country calico

New York Post, 
Wed., Sep. 14, 2011, 10:03 PM

 

          A calico cat named Willow, who disappeared from a home near the Rocky Mountains five years ago, was found Wednesday on a Manhattan street and will soon be returned to a family in which two of the three kids and one of the two dogs may remember her.

          How she got to New York, more than 1,600 miles away, and the kind of life she lived in the city are mysteries.

          But thanks to a microchip implanted when she was a kitten, Willow will be reunited in Colorado with her owners, who had long ago given up hope.

          "To be honest, there are tons of coyotes around here, and owls," said Jamie Squires, of Boulder. "She was just a little thing, five and a half pounds. We put out the 'Lost Cat' posters and the Craigslist thing, but we actually thought she'd been eaten by coyotes."

          Squires and her husband, Chris, were "shocked and astounded" when they got a call Wednesday from Animal Care & Control, which runs New York City's animal rescue and shelter system.

          Willow had been found on East 20th Street by a man who took her to a shelter.

      "My husband said, 'Don't say anything to the kids yet. We have to make sure,'" Squires said. "But then we saw the picture, and it was Willow. It's been so long."

          ACC Executive Director Julie Bank said a scanner found the microchip that led to the Squires family.

          "All our pets are microchipped," Squires said. "If I could microchip my kids, I would."

          The children are 17, 10 and 3 years old, so the older two remember Willow, Squires said. As for the 3-year-old, "She saw the photo and said, 'She's a pretty cat.'"

          The Squireses also have a yellow Labrador named Roscoe, who knew Willow, and an English mastiff named Zoe.

          "We had another dog back then, too, and I remember that Willow would lie with them as they all waited to be fed," Squires said. "She thought she was a dog."

          Squires said Willow escaped in late 2006 or early 2007 when contractors left a door open during a home renovation.

         Since then, the family had moved about 10 miles from Broomfield to Boulder, but it kept its address current with the microchip company.

        Bank recommended that all pet owners use microchips.

          She said Willow, who now weighs 7 pounds, is healthy and well-mannered and probably has not spent her life on the mean streets of Manhattan. But there are no clues about her trip east or anything else in the five years she's been missing.

          Squires seemed a bit worried about a possible New York state of mind.

          "I don't know what kind of life she's had, so I don't know what her personality will be like," she said. 

       When Willow disappeared, she said, "She was a really cool cat, really sweet."

          The ACC and the Squireses were trying to arrange for transportation back to Colorado and health certificates and said it might be two weeks before the reunion. Willow may spend some time with a foster family in New York.

          "The kids can't wait to see her," Squires said. "And we still have her little Christmas stocking."

NOTE FROM OUR CALICOS, ROSE AND PANSY, TO WILLOW:  


"WELCOME HOME, WILLOW.  NAMASTE." 

Pansy

Rose



For 9-17-11 Willow update: PLEASE SEE HERE.

Rose (Bat-Girl) -- Meglio Solo, Part 2

Rose Roberts

 

     It's quite early in the morning and I've just met, as I do every day at this hour, my cat Rose in my office. Apart from our broader, deeper relationship, we are partners at Outlier Entertainment, my small independent entertainment firm, and we work the same long shift every day sitting facing each other across the room. 

     The Outlier Entertainment logo shown below might also be called "Portrait of Rose" because the concepts it illustrates -- an "object situated away from other main bodies" and "a person whose residence and place of business are at a distance" -- pretty well describes Rose's status and position in space vis-a-vis the other members of our household.  As the needlepoint pillow inscription clearly states, Rose prefers to be alone than in bad company.

Outlier Entertainment Group logo    

     Rose is a kind, serious and, obviously, beautiful creature.  She is 13 now, our oldest cat.  She and her sister Pansy were the first cats we adopted after finally losing our dear U and Santa.  It is always difficult and confusing beginning a new family after a hard loss, but we were luckier than we ever imagined or could have hoped for, meeting and joining up with these two beautiful and spirited sisters from Nashville who were very close, but utterly different in personality. 

Rose and Pansy as kittens climbing up my leg at 510 East 86th Street, New York, New York

     

     Rose has never been wholly supportive of our large-scale cat adoption program, although she has tolerated it.  She has old-fashioned good manners and a dramatic sense of decorum (the kind you only see in 1930s black & white "high society" movies or theater revivals these days) and she chooses her friends carefully.   She is by no means a snob. Although she loves Claude, our family's aristocrat cream-colored Persian with the "Burke's Peerage" set of  bloodlines, she has equal affection for our large tabby Eddie, who lived outside for several years in dire conditions, exposed to harsh weather, everyday danger and disease.  Her feelings about the others range from (sometimes amused) indifference for the "kids" (Bunny, Junior, and Princess Daisy) and the several ferals who stay in the basement, to quiet hostility for Felix, our bruiser, mostly Maine Coon male, who I like quite a bit, but admit is deficient in the "going along to get along" department.

Spicy Detective Stories, July 1942, "Blood for the 'Bat-Girl'"

     Caroline felt that my post about Rose last weekend, which I intended to be a pure portrait-plus-title moment, provided readers kind enough to visit this page insufficient detail regarding this remarkable girl and I agree.  You would all definitely love mysterious Rose.  Apart from her unique Bat-Girl mask, deep green eyes and even deeper purr, her speaking voice, which has a unique "tearing paper set to music" quality, both guides you around the house like a flashlight in the dark and provides constant and ample food for thought.  Rose really holds up her end of the conversation.  

 

Outside of Nashville, Tennessee (Leiper's Fork), where Rose and Pansy were born


     Not only is Rose the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night, but she was also the first element of our new family life that Jane experienced when we returned from China in the fall of 1998.  We were very slightly worried that our infant daughter might either be allergic to or not care for cats, but when we opened the apartment door that night on East 86th Street after weeks in Asia, and Rose and Pansy, also babies still, greeted us, the look of surprise and cry of delight from Jane and the chorus of their three voices are things we will never forget and will always be grateful for.     

You are dismissed.