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Sufferin' succotash! Sylvester the cat survives trek from S.C. to Montreal |
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Written by Sidhartha Banerjee, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Friday, 29 August 2008 |
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MONTREAL - Janet Nease's black-and-white cat Sylvester has always had a penchant for wandering off, sometimes for days on end.
But patience always paid off for Nease, a native of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and she wasn't worried when Sylvester vanished on June 15. It wasn't the first time Sylvester had been lured off to a nearby campground by the smell of barbecue.
The feisty 17-year-old feline always returned home eventually.
So just how her little wanderer ended up in Montreal, some 1,700 kilometres away, remains a mystery. One thing's for sure, he certainly didn't walk all the way, Nease said.
"I never thought in a million years he'd be this far away," Nease said in a telephone interview from Montreal, where she was reunited with Sylvester this week.
"I think the first thing I said was, 'Couldn't he have found some licence plates from North Carolina?' "
Since Sylvester can't talk, the assumption is he hitched a ride to Montreal in someone's camper.
"We're just guessing but we figure he was lured over to the campground by the smell of hamburgers and hot dogs," Nease said.
"He's very friendly so I'm not sure if he decided to settle down in somebody's camper, perhaps from Montreal, who returned home with him to Montreal."
Sylvester somehow turned up last Friday in a suburb north of Montreal, scuffed up, limping and malnourished.
Marie Chevarie, a resident of Lorraine, Que., found poor Sylvester whimpering in a parking lot and took him in. He looked scrawny and tired, but came to Chevarie when she called.
Chevarie fed him a can of tuna which he eagerly gobbled up and took in the cat, who'd lost half his body weight.
Using a telephone number on Sylvester's collar, she called Nease in the U.S.
"She had no idea where she was calling," said Nease, who had papered her neighbourhood with flyers, but had no clue she'd need to look much, much farther away.
"He's always been a bit of a wanderer, but I said 'Montreal, Canada?'," Nease said.
Sylvester is still recovering and getting great vet care in Montreal, but Nease says she's having trouble finding a way to get both of them home. Sylvester's too weak to fly from his adventure so she may have to make other arrangements.
"I really felt like I was going to find him again, he was very healthy and had long hair," said Nease.
"He's 17-years-old but he doesn't look a day over five."
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