It was a black day when Black Betty disappeared from her Okanagan Avenue home.
Tears have turned to joy as Christina Marier was recently reunited with the cat who was indeed named after Ram Jam’s 1977 hit Black Betty.
“She is a song; she is just beautiful,” says Marier of the four-year-old feline, who was always content to circle a two-block area at the bottom of Okanagan Avenue but went missing at the beginning of April. “I think she got scared away and got disoriented.”
Marier plastered posters created by neighbour Debbie Beadle, called the Pet Report and posted her missing feline on Facebook. After a couple of months, Marier decided Black Betty had been picked up or carried off by a predator.
The precocious feline had ventured over to The Ridge, a subdivision at 10th Street SW and Foothill Road.
“She was homeless; we watched her kill a mouse and place it on our doorstep,” says Tess Caldwell, who was visiting her parents and said she has had enough cats in her lifetime to know Black Betty was looking for a home. “She was so loving and so tame.”
Caldwell’s 14-year-old son Sebastian approached his grandparents’ neighbours, all of whom said the cat did not belong to them. At his urging, Black Betty was taken to the local SPCA shelter.
Employee Barb Gosselin says they were able to trace the cat through a tattoo and immediately called Marier with the good news. They knew they had a match when the cat started purring at the sight of his owner, an action SPCA workers had failed to elicit despite their best efforts.
“The SPCA was so amazing, they were just as excited as me,” says Marier, grateful to them and the Caldwells for the happy conclusion to the four-month separation.
Marier’s other cat greeted Black Betty with hisses, but has accepted her again. And Black Betty is content to be back on her regular routine.