Reunion: Chunky Found & Going Home

Following is the email I received today from Jacek who rescued Chunky the black cat who promptly got lost in the system. Kudos to Jacek for never giving up the search and for doing whatever was necessary to get all the information that finally connected him to Paula who was taking care of Chunky all this time.

Dear Anita,

I would like to officially tell you that we have found Chunky! It's been a few days since it actually happened, but I wanted to make sure I understand every piece of the story before telling everyone.

Chunky is in New Orleans with Paula Raspberry. I spoke with Paula and she is very nice, and happy that Chunky will be re-joining his family, now in Seattle. Sefla and her mother can't wait to have him back.

As you may know, we last saw Chunky at 2 p.m. on September 20. About an hour later Paula showed up at Lamar Dixon looking for her cats. She mistook Chunky for her black cat Felix. Interestingly, there were no papers whatsoever on Chunky's cage. His intake number was written on a white Tyvec collar, though. That's why we were able to track him down in the end.

Paula took him home and in a day or two realized that he was not Felix. She went back to Lamar Dixon on another occasion (she had about a dozen cats "boarded" there following Katrina, and it took her a while to locate and recover them all) and told the staff she would foster him until the owner shows up. And obviously no-one took note of this. So she waited and we were looking, and the missing link in the form of sheet of paper with Paula's contact info and Chunky's ID number was sitting quietly in the drawers at 2100 L Street, N.W..

A lot of people kindly donated their time and effort looking for Chunky. I hope not all of it was in vain. We got drawn into the search and in the process helped find a number of other animals.

All the best in the new year!

Jacek and Zosia