Bubba disappeared when she went out for a night-time pee break on January 31, and her petparents found the 18 year old cat alive and trapped under the snow 40 days later.
Bubba lives with her petparents, Howard Hogan and Lucina Costain, in St. Felix, P.E.I. on the western tip of the Island. The couple looked for her when she didn’t come back in on that January night bt figured she must have run off or been killed by a coyote when she wasn’t found and didn’t return.
Howard says he did hear meowing from time to time. He finally decided to dig through a mound of snow on a recent day and was shocked when a familiar little paw eventually beckoned through. Bubba had been living in a hole in the snow, both protected and trapped just feet from her door.
“I thought I heard something and, sure enough, her paw stuck out and she meowed, and well, I near fainted,” Howard said.
“Lucina was looking out the window, and I told her, I yelled, ‘The cat is alive!’ And she come out running.”
“He hollered to me. He said, ‘She’s here,’” Lucinda said, adding “You could just barely see her.”
The couple had both shoveled toward that spot looking for Bubba during those 40 days. Lucinda had tried looking for her under the deck the day after she disappeared, and Howard shoveled around on a couple of occasions, hoping to find her.
Bubba is described as having been wobbly as she followed the couple indoors, and immediately headed for her food dish.
She was given some warm milk and, on the vet’s advice, she was fed with small portions at first. She is now eating normally and has been gaining weight and getting her strength back.
After a couple of days, she was once again able to jump up onto her favorite chair.
Bubba was chubby when she went missing, and Howard and Lucinda think the extra weight helped her to survive. They think she subsisted on grass that had grown under the deck, water from melted snow, and mice that may have gotten under the deck.
Why to people think it is ok to let the cat out to pee, or whatever? They are lucky the cat survived.
This is a very sad story. That poor cat. I wish the owners had tried a little harder when they heard meowing. I understand they’re elderly, but more effort could have been made.