Most people were happy to see the year 2020 go — but a New England cat named Moose, who had been missing for five years, had an especially ecstatic start to 2021.
On New Year’s Day, 12-year-old Siamese cat Moose enjoyed a blissful reunion with his human, Kendra Armstrong, five years after he had escaped the house and disappeared. They found each other thanks to Midcoast Humane, an animal shelter and rescue in Brunswick, Maine.
Back in December, Kendra had been looking at photos of adoptable cats on the shelter’s website, and she recognized a very familiar-looking face. The cat was named Oldest, but Kendra felt certain she was looking at a photo of her beloved Moose. She immediately called the shelter.
“Frequently, people will reach out and say, ‘That’s my cat,’” says Kate Griffith, marketing and communications manager for Midcoast Humane. “More often than not, it isn’t. We weren’t especially hopeful.”
But, miraculously, Oldest actually was Moose! Not only that, but he had cycled through the shelter a few times during the years since he got lost.
Initially, someone brought in the cat as a stray, and the shelter named him Piglet. He was adopted twice and returned twice — first because the adopter’s living situation changed and second because he was not a good fit for the home. The first adopter re-named Piglet to Oldest, and that name stuck.
When Kendra came into the shelter on New Year’s Day to meet the cat she was sure was Moose, he started meowing constantly and didn’t want to leave her side. That’s a good indication that he recognized his original human mom, Kate says.
“It’s a really heartwarming tale, and it took place the first day of 2021,” she says.
In the shelter’s original Facebook post thread about the Moose case on January 5, Kendra wrote, “I honestly thought he had crossed the rainbow bridge and I would never see him again. When I found out that he had been with someone for four years, I couldn’t have been more happy to know that he was alive and being loved and cared for this whole time!”
Kendra sent the shelter this message after the reunion: “Moose (Oldest) knows he’s finally home and he does NOT want me to leave his sight. … I am so grateful to have him home with me.”
