Cat sealed up in box survives 8-day journey by mail

The recipient of a shipment of DVDs was "somewhat startled" when a Siamese cat jumped out of the large box that had arrived in the mail. 

Julie Baggott, the cat's owner, had not intended to send her cat on an eight-day journey from her home county in Cornwall, England, to West Sussex, more than 400 kilometres away. 

Baggott had been packing up DVDs to send to a buyer on the other side of the southern English coast when her cat, Cupcake, dove into the large box for nap. Without realizing her cat was inside, she sealed the box and then sent it on its way.

"When I realized she was missing, it was the most horrible, scary feeling," Baggott told the BBC. Thinking her cat had run away, she gathered family and neighbours to look for Cupcake.

"We made posters and walked miles across fields, forests and woods looking for her," she said.

The next week, Ziffit, a service that trades used goods for cash, opened the box and found the cat, which appeared quite unhealthy, they wrote in blog post on their website. 

"We're used to opening our customers' boxes and finding all kinds of books, CDs and DVDs, but this is a new one for us," said Paul Treanor, one of Ziffit's directors.

The company reached out to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a charity that picked up the cat and handed her to the Grove Lodge Vets, according to a post on their blog.

"She was quite dehydrated and obviously really quite scared, quite nervous," Ben Colwell, a vet who treated Cupcake, told the Guardian. "She's done really, really well, she's responded to fluids really well."

Cupcake had been implanted with a microchip, which the veterinarian scanned to identify her owner.

Baggott was happy to have her cat back more or less unscathed. 

"It was a miracle she was alive, she's managed to survive that awful ordeal," Baggott said to the BBC. 

The Royal Mail prohibits sending live animals through the mail. aside from insects, fish eggs, worms and spiders.