Missing Cat Turns Up at Logan Airport in Boston After 3 Weeks Leaving His Family Baffled
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Millions of pets go missing across the United States every year, and sadly, a large number of them - especially cats - never make it back home to their families. For these families, the ordeal of desperately looking for their pet for weeks only for their hope to slowly fade can be absolutely soul-crushing. But every once in a while, one of these sad stories gets a happy ending.
Harry, an 8-year-old indoor cat living in the Boston suburb of Somerville, went missing in mid-July, sending his family into a frenzy. For three weeks, their search efforts proved fruitless - that is, until Harry unexpectedly popped up at Boston Logan Airport!
After three unsuccessful weeks of desperately searching for Harry, the LaFleur family was on the verge of losing hope when they got a phone call from the Animal Rescue League of Boston with wonderful news. Harry had been found by some kindly strangers in a parking garage at Boston Logan Airport, ten miles away from home. Harry's mom, Christine LaFleur, told CBS Boston that she's baffled by how he got that far from home - and by how he even managed to escape in the first place.
"He's an indoor cat, and he doesn't go outside, so he must have found an escape hatch of some kind," Christine said. She and the rest of the LaFleur family had scoured their neighborhood for weeks, never realizing that Harry had somehow made it to a completely different part of Boston!
Christine still doesn't know exactly what happened, but she has one theory, based on the fact that Harry made it so far in such a relatively short time.
"He's pretty obsessed with boxes, so he may have seen a box in the back of a delivery truck and jumped in and took a little ride to Logan," Christine opined.
Some parts of Harry's story will never be revealed - that is, unless someone develops a cat translator in his lifetime. But how and why he got to Boston Logan isn't the most important part of Harry's tale. What matters is that Harry finally made it home safe, and his family - including his cat brother Ron - couldn't be happier to have him back.
Keeping Track of Lost Cats
Though cats can technically travel several miles per day, veterinary scientist Dr. John Bradshaw estimates that the average cat roams between 40-200 meters of their homes, with the exception of farm cats. Indoor cats, obviously, are much more likely to stay within the shorter end of that roaming distance. However, as Harry's story proves, you can't count on a lost cat sticking close to home, so you should always have a contingency plan in place!
The tried-and-true collar with an ID tag can save the day if your cat goes missing, as anyone who finds them can use your contact information to reach out. If you have an outdoor cat (or an indoor cat with a penchant for escape artistry), it's also not a bad idea to fit their collar with a GPS tracking device so you can easily look up your cat's location on your phone!
But cat collars can break and GPS trackers can fall off, so don't depend on these alone. At the end of the day, microchipping your cat (and properly registering your information with it) is the best way to improve your odds of a happy reunion if your cat ever goes missing. As CBS Boston noted, Harry's rescuers used his microchip to reunite him with his family and give them the happy ending they'd so desperately longed for. When all else fails, microchips save the day!
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