They thought he was a goner – but the cat did, indeed, come back.
Pumpkin walked out the door of Louise Smith’s home off Gardom Lake Road nearly a year ago and just disappeared. Without a trace of his fluffy orange self.
Smith and her two daughters were devastated. Pumpkin had become a cherished member of the family. He came to live with them in January or February of 2011, when he was just six weeks old. As time progressed he started venturing outside, but would come in every night.
“He never left the surroundings of the home, he was always within earshot and came every time,” says Smith.
About a year later, at the end of February 2012, he went out and didn’t come back.
“I thought perhaps the timing was right for him to be out tomming, so I thought that’s what he was doing.”
However, he didn’t return. The Smiths did everything they could think of to track him down. They put up posters, told neighbours, checked with veterinarians and the SPCA, advertised – but to no avail. If they spotted a fluffy orange cat, they would stop to see if it was Pumpkin.
“Finally we just gave up, thinking we had lost him. It was a little hard for me, I loved him so much,” Smith says, her voice breaking. “He was such a loving kitty, we really missed him when he was gone.”
She points out that the Gardom Lake area is covered in trees and is frequented by predators like coyotes and hawks.
“And he was basically a house cat.”
On Monday evening last week as Smith was driving home, she stopped at the corner of Gardom Lake Road to pick up a newspaper. Attached to the blue box there was a poster. It advertised a ‘found’ cat, one that appeared to have been lost for a long time. An orange cat.
She and her daughter drove to the woman’s home, which was on a hill above the lake.
“We went up there to look and it was him. Of course I was crying, I just thought, ‘Oh my god,’ I couldn’t believe it. They said he had been hanging around since late summer, early fall.”
If not for distinctive markings, Smith might not have recognized Pumpkin. He was thin and beaten up.
“Just from survival, fighting. It’s just a miracle.”
When Smith arrived and called his name, Pumpkin didn’t respond at first.
“Then I called him again. He literally ran toward me – he didn’t walk, he ran toward me and started meowing right away.”
The woman who had looked after him explained to Smith that a family who had been staying nearby had left, and they had thought perhaps he was theirs. They had tried to coax him to come inside but he wouldn’t. However, with the recent heavy snow, he had finally come in.
“They said he ate like he was starved. They fed him and put the sign up and hoped for the best.”
Despite an 11-month absence, he remembered home.
“He actually went to his favourite room and favourite spot.”
She says he slept through most of the first couple of days, and is now doing better. Smith sees it not only as something of a miracle, but also a story of human kindness – of a woman taking the extra steps to find the cat’s home and to take care of him.
“I was thinking this would give other people hope not to give up on their animals. To me I was very touched by the kindness of this lady, she went so out of her way to try to find his home. That’s something not everybody would do.”