A cat owner originally from Saint John has been granted the purrfect Christmas miracle.
“I figured we would never seem him again,” said John McIntyre, the owner of a five-year-old tabby cat named Zig that went missing from his home in Saint John in October 2015.
McIntyre, who was moving to Vancouver, left his beloved pet with his son while he flew to British Columbia to look for a pet friendly apartment, but Zig managed to slip out the door and went missing for months.
McIntyre was crushed.
Zig, he said, was his “best friend”. He had rescued the cat from a beer box in Montreal as a kitten.
“It was really the first animal that I had ever bonded with and I never really viewed him as a cat or a pet. He was a family member,” said McIntyre.
Desperate to get his cat back, McIntyre posted pictures of Zig on social media. Over the last year there were a few possible sightings, but as the months dragged on he has lost hope that Zig would ever be found. Especially given that he was now living permanently in B.C.
McIntyre said people from all across the city of Saint John spent months looking for Zig, even after he left the province.
“This is a really cool story about the people of Saint John and the community of Saint John and how much they still have their sense of community and it involves a cat.”
One of those avid searchers was Shelley Churley from Rescue Meow cat rescue.
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She, like McIntyre feared that Zig was a goner, but the cat came back. It was not the next day, but 13 months later that someone found the wayward feline and contacted Churley.
She recognized his distinct markings and quirky nature right away.
”Everyone was over the moon because some are never found,” she said.
Churley contacted McIntyre with the good news. The question then became how to get him across the country.
Enter June Milley, who works for Air Canada. She called in a few favours and on Friday morning, 13 months after he went missing, Zig was flying VIP to be reunited with his human in Vancouver.
“I am so excited to be part of this boy’s journey back home. I can’t imagine what he has lived through” said Milley as she said her final farewells to Zig at the airport.
Just how many lives Zig used up on his journey, no one will ever know. But he will be back in McIntyre’s arms in time for the holidays.
“It’s going to be an awesome Christmas present to have him back.”
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