As a result of the message, Ellie the cat – who belongs to her daughters Kinley and Kenzie – is home safe and sound after disappearing in July.
As a result of the message, Ellie the cat – who belongs to her daughters Kinley and Kenzie – is home safe and sound after disappearing in July.
“I have no idea why I posted last week, I was still hoping,” she said.
The night the grey cat went missing, Kinley was walking her dog near their home in Westville, and discovered Ellie following them. “She shooed her home,” Leithead said, but the feline never returned.
After she went missing, Leithead posted about it several times on Facebook. “Then I kind of gave up hope,” she said. “I never got one response.”
She said they had begun to think the worst, until she received a message from the Pictou County SPCA last week asking questions about the lost cat.
“We went to the SPCA the next day in a snowstorm. Nothing was going to stop us,” she said.
“Now she’s home, back up on top of the cupboard with her blanket.”
Ellie was brought to the SPCA shelter in Granton after workers at Jim Nelson Automotive in the Stellarton Industrial Park caught her.
“They were feeding it, and wanted to get it in before the cold weather,” said Agnes Leavitt, manager of the SPCA shelter, whose son works at the auto repair shop.
One of the SPCA employees recognized the cat from Leithead’s most recent social media message. “She had just put the post up. It was sheer luck, really,” said Leavitt, adding that if it weren't for Leithead’s diligence, Ellie wouldn’t have been reunited with her family.
“We love happy endings like these, makes all the work we do that much more important,” said a Facebook post from the Pictou County SPCA. “The amazing part of this story is Ellie went missing in July from Westville and was found December in Stellarton.”
Leithead speculates Ellie may have gotten inside a car, because she would frequently get inside theirs and go to sleep. “If she did get into a car, she wouldn’t have a scent to pick up (to find her way home).”
Leithead is thankful for the websites and the SPCA for bringing their pet home, and is happy her persistence paid off.
“It’s like a Christmas miracle – she was gone for five months.”
