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Sheriden Hansen was overcome with emotion when she saw her long lost cat Tootsie’s photo online after visiting an adoption event’s Facebook page.
“I started to cry, and I don’t think I’ve stopped till now,” Ms. Hansen said Saturday afternoon.
Tootsie, who went missing five years ago, was one of hundreds of pets looking for homes last weekend at the No-Kill Utah Adoption Weekend in Salt Lake City.
Tootsie disappeared, it was discovered, at a time when a neighbor of Ms. Hansen’s was trapping neighborhood pets that entered his back yard and dropping the animals off elsewhere. Ms. Hansen searched for her missing cat and kept in contact with shelters in case she turned up as a stray, but there were no leads on Tootsie’s whereabouts.
Ms. Hansen was not still actively searching for Tootisie when she spotted her photo online but had not completely given up hope of finding her again. Her persistence at going through the adoptable pet photos was rewarded when she got to the 625th pet listed for adoption at the event; it was Tootsie.
Tootsie and her petmom were reunited on Saturday at the adoption event. Tootsie was most recently at a West Valley shelter but was obviously someone’s pet before that, as she had been declawed at some point during the 5 years she was missing.
Tootsie was one of more than 420 animals who founf homes at the three day adoption fair, held May 2-4 at the Utah State Fairpark. The No-Kill Utah Adoption Weekend was sponsored by the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in support of the No-Kill Utah initiative launched in March that aims to save a combined 90 percent of the animals that come into the state’s shelters.
Watch Sheriden Hansen and Tootsie’s story in this video report:
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