Smokey Comes Home - A Cat Rescue Story

by Robert Barrow
(Vanceboro, NC )

Smokey our cat relaxing in the swing

Smokey our cat relaxing in the swing

When Smokey was about 6 months old he disappeared for about 8 days. We were grief stricken & I had not gotten over the grief due to the passing of my Mother about 3 weeks previous. This really made it much worse. We had given up hope of ever seeing him again & we live on a major highway, so the posibility of him getting run over was quite possible.


My wife was at home one day and all of a sudden Smokey jumped up to the kitchen window. She was startled to see that he had come home. Smokey was skin & bones & looked emaciated. He ate 3 cans of Tender Vitals & a bowl of dry cat food & begged for more. She wouldn't give him anything else. She immediately called me at work to give me the good news. Our home is situated in a triangle with highway frontage on both sides of the house. He will be 17 on this Memorial Day. In all of these 17 years Smokey has never been near or crossed the highway. He has stayed in out triangle and has never ventured more than 500 ft. from the house to a wooded area nearby to hunt. He has brought home his prize catch of rabbits, squirrels, birds & mice numerous time over the years. We have always been puzzled as to what happened to him over those 8 days. He must have had an awful harrowing experience while away or perhaps been up a tree & didn't know how to get down. He was always being chased up trees in our yard when he was young by neighbourhood cats & I would have to get a ladder & rescue him. He has been a real joy all these years and he will surely be missed when he passes.

Comment from Kate
Thanks for telling us your cats story. It’s funny how cats can often do these sort of disappearing acts during their life for no apparent reason.

My guess is that yes they get stuck somewhere, a tree, a shed etc Anyway thank goodness he came home.

Click here to post comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Your Cat Rescue Stories.


I'd love to hear what you think of this page or my site. Let me know if you like what you have read or if it has helped you with a problem.

It's easy to do just leave a comment in the box below and click the like / share or +1 to let others know about my site. Thank You It really is most appreciated.

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.