navygreen: (Cats: Baby)
[personal profile] navygreen
I saw this article yesterday, and I thought it was such a cute story (but only because of the happy ending!). You can read it through the link, but I'm also posting it here for myself:

Stowaway Cat Makes It Back Home

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (Jan. 23) - Some kitty math: How many lives did little tabby Gracie Mae use up when she crawled into her owner's suitcase, went through an airport X-ray machine, got loaded onto a plane, thrown onto a baggage belt and mistakenly picked up by a stranger far from home?


Gracie Mae, a 10-month-old tabby, stowed away in her owner's suitcase for a plane trip from Florida to Texas. Once there, a stranger mistakenly picked up the suitcase and brought it home to find the cat inside.


"She's got to be at four or five now," Seth Levy said after his 10-month-old pet was returned Sunday night by a kind stranger who went home to Fort Worth, Texas, with the wrong bag and Gracie inside to boot.

The last time Levy's wife, Kelly, saw Gracie was before she took her husband to the airport. The 24-year-old went back to her house in Palm Beach Gardens late Friday to find the bottom step, where Gracie would usually be waiting, empty.

She tore the house apart looking for the cat, who had been spayed just days before. She and her dad took out bathroom tiles and part of a cabinet to check a crawl space and papered the neighborhood with "lost cat" signs.

Then she got a phone call.

"Hi, you're not going to believe this, but I am calling from Fort Worth, Texas, and I accidentally picked up your husband's luggage. And when I opened the luggage, a cat jumped out," Kelly Levy quoted the caller saying.

Rob Carter said he made it home with the suitcase before realizing it wasn't his — and there was a big surprise inside.

"I went to unpack and saw some of the clothes and saw it wasn't my suitcase," he said. "I was going to close it, and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl."

Carter said that he eventually was able to get the cat to come out from under the bed.

"In the morning, I got close enough to see its collar and the phone number on it," he said. "So I called the number and got a hold of the crying wife of the traveler."

The tabby made the 1,300-mile trip home on an $80 plane ticket. Carter said he considered keeping the cat before he knew she had a home.

"We were going to name it Suitcase," he said.



Meanwhile, Kelly Levy, right, tore her house apart looking for Gracie Mae and plastered "lost cat" signs in her neighborhood before getting a call from the stranger, who was shocked when a cat jumped out of the suitcase. The cat then made the 1,300-mile trip home.



In December 2005, another cat made headlines when she was found in France two months after disappearing from her Wisconsin home. Emily apparently crawled inside a container at a nearby paper company and stayed inside while it was shipped to Chicago, then to Belgium and finally to France.


Workers at a laminating company in France found the cat and used her tags to contact her veterinarian, who called her owners. Emily then traveled home in style, riding in business class on a complimentary Continental Airlines flight.


Emily the cat looks out of her carrier as she waits for a connecting flight at Newark Liberty International Airport on her way home. "She seems a little calmer than she was before, just a little quieter, a little, maybe, wiser," her owner said at the time.

Date: 2008-01-24 10:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bydaylight.livejournal.com
That's adorable!

Date: 2008-01-25 03:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
I know. Such a cute kitty, too!

Date: 2008-01-25 12:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hetterrific.livejournal.com
Moral of the story: if you have a brown tabby cat, make sure they aren't in your luggage when you go on a trip.

Date: 2008-01-25 03:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
You should probably not show this story to Tasha. She'll be like, "See, Mom? I *can* go, and I'll still come back just fine!"

Date: 2008-01-25 12:21 am (UTC)
shoebox_addict: (Icon of moi)
From: [personal profile] shoebox_addict
Oh my goodness! Aww, she's such a cute little kitty too! That's so amazing that she was okay! And I love that they were gonna name it Suitcase. XP

Date: 2008-01-25 03:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
The kitty has such big, beautiful eyes. :-)

Date: 2008-01-25 02:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] maryjo.livejournal.com
That happened here! What an amazing story :o)

Date: 2008-01-25 03:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
If it hadn't had a happy ending, I'd be so sad.

Date: 2008-01-25 04:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marshmelococoa.livejournal.com
I saw this story and wondered with our excellent technology and state of hightened security - how the cat made it through luggage xray and not one person noticed a SKELETON in the suitcase.

Glad kitty is back home safe!

Date: 2008-01-26 07:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
No kidding, right?!

Date: 2008-01-25 07:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greencow.livejournal.com
i saw something about this on the news the other night. whoever says a cat can't find his (or her) way home no matter what is totally wrong!

Date: 2008-01-26 07:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
Yes. Like the cat that traveled to France - amazing!

Date: 2008-01-25 07:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] syven.livejournal.com
Talk about renewing your faith in your fellow humans and corporations at the same time! Both cats were at the mercy of people who easily could have been indifferent or cruel.

In the case of Emily, both a foriegn country and an airline company went out of their way to return the cat. It's pretty great to know that there are still 'good guys' out there!

Date: 2008-01-26 07:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
It's because cats are so darn adorable, I'm sure. *nods*

I posted about having a dream about you a few days ago. It was surreal, for sure.
(deleted comment)

Date: 2008-01-26 07:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
The pictures are what make the cat, Gracie, even more endearing. She's so cute! Oh, and I absolutely laughed out loud as I read this line: "I was going to close it, and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl." :-D

Date: 2008-01-25 02:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gardenmama.livejournal.com
I used to have a kitty that looked just like that first one - brown eyes and everything. Glad she made it home safely to her people.

Date: 2008-01-26 07:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
Awww. We don't get to see enough of your kitty icon. Or even pics of your kitty, for that matter. ;-)

Date: 2008-01-26 07:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gardenmama.livejournal.com
He doesn't look like the pic so much any more :( He's lost a lot of weight and kind of stopped grooming himself. So his fur has gotten kind of bunchy looking. I really should brush him more often, he loves it so. We've taken him to the vet and run lots of tests, but there's nothing medically wrong with him. I guess he's just getting old :( He still loves on both my kiddos though. Lately he's taken to sleeping on Scott's pillow at night. I don't know what we'll do when we lose him. He's 14.

Date: 2008-01-26 07:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
I've lost cats in my family that were 13-18 years old, and it is definitely tough. They're true family members, so I know how you feel. However, if he is getting older, you really should make time to take pictures of him. Scott, especially, will always remember him, and he'll love to have extra pictures of the kitty after he's gone. Help Scott to make a mini-album or something - it could be fun!

Date: 2008-02-11 06:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] blaqeyedpea81.livejournal.com
This makes me want a cat so badly. Look at how sweet they are! But it would cost $300 because my apartment complex is ridiculous.

Date: 2008-02-14 11:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] navygreen.livejournal.com
Well, and it doesn't help that this particular cat is SO ADORABLE either, I'm sure.

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