PEI

They thought she was a goner: Cat came back 15 months later

An Island family is celebrating after their cat who had been missing for 15 months was found.

'She wasn't even here for Trump's election so we've got some hard news to tell her'

Lorraine, a Charlottetown cat, was missing for more than a year before her family received a phone call Wednesday that she had been found. (Dave Atkinson)

An Island family is celebrating after their cat who had been missing for 15 months was found.

Lorraine, also known as Lo-Lo, had been with the Atkinson family for about four years before she went missing last year.

"She is wonderful and in her own way she's got a lot of charm," said Dave Atkinson. "She's a funny cat and really affectionate if you catch her outside."

But when the family packed up and moved to a new house in August 2016, Atkinson said there came a night at the end of the month when the outdoor cat didn't come home.

"I didn't make a big deal of it. I didn't want to make the kids anxious," he said. "We had decided by the end of the second day that she was missing."

In the following days, the family knocked on doors, put up posters and took to social media in search of Lorraine with no success.

The kids, Atkinson said, "were really destroyed by this."

A year goes by...

It wasn't until 15 months later than the family got a call from the P.E.I. Lost Pet Network saying that someone had found their cat in the Sleepy Hollow area and that they could pick her up at the PEI Humane Society.

"It was almost like she said, 'I don't like it. I'm going to go back to our old house' but she overshot the mark by like two or three kilometres," he said.

Atkinson said his family is emotional about getting to see their cat again, but he isn't surprised by Lorraine's return.

"I know that cat too well. I know that she's just not stupid," he said.

Since the cat went missing, the family has adopted two other cats and instituted a firm indoor cat policy.

Atkinson said he and Lorraine have some catching up to do.

"She wasn't even here for Trump's election so we've got some hard news to tell her."