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News outlets in the UK, including STV and the BBC, covered the story of a mystery Spanish cat who traveled from the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa to Aberdeenshire, Scotland before ending up in a residential garage in Muchalls, about 10 miles from Aberdeen, acting lost and confused.
Joseph Long opened his garage door on Thursday and found the cat inside. Long called his mother, Rosy Long, who told STV: “Joseph called me because I’m known as the cat lady of Muchalls, so I went along to his house and there she was at the back of the garage on a worktop.
“She was yowling and when we walked past, she hissed at us, but I think it was because she was so lost and cold.
“After a while she settled down and she was lovely, but when we opened the garage door she was really hesitant to leave.”We thought she would have just wandered off back home, but it was like she didn’t know where to go. She had a wander up and down the road, but she kept coming back to us meowing.”
Ms. Long took the cat to Kirkton Vets, where a microchip scan traced her registration to the Spanish island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. The Stonehaven branch of Cats Protection joined in the search for the cat’s owner.
The cat, who was being called Juanita in a nod to her origins, was very sweet and friendly, leading both vet and shelter staff to feel she was an owned pet and someone was surely missing her.
They were correct. Juanita, who is really Tina, moved to Scotland from Fuerteventura with her petmom, Fiona Prati, who was very concerned when the cat went missing several days before she turned up in Mr. Long’s garage.
Tina is thought to have jumped into the back of a commercial van traveling from her home in Aberdeen to Muchalls.
Kirkton Vets let Facebook fans know on Friday that the mystery kitty’s owner had been found. They explained how the kitty got to Aberdeenshire and shared the photo above from the cat’s reunion with her petmom earlier today, saying:
“‘Juanita’, actually named Tina, was reunited with her owner this morning!
“Tina had been missing for 10 days, so her owner had feared the worst. A very happy lady was delighted to get her back, much more famous than when she had last seen her!
“She wanted to thank everyone for all their help.:
Stonehaven Cats Protection located Ms. Prati by calling vets offices in the area until they got a match.
Zahir White, media officer at Cats Protection, said: “It is great news that Tina’s owner has been found and we’re happy we were able to play a part in reuniting them. Every week we help to reunite 50 lost cats with their owners across the UK and this is one of the most unusual cases we have come across.
“It is always heart-breaking when a much-loved cat goes missing and the owner never knows what became of them. Cases like this show how important it is to get cats microchipped and keep the microchip details up-to-date.”
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