Most owners pick their pets – but sometimes, it’s the pet who picks you.
Ann Bosche, an animal lover from the city of Lucedale in the US state of Mississippi, has one such pet in her family: tomcat Mr Fancy, who knew exactly where he belonged even before his humans did.
The longhaired tabby first turned up in the Bosche family’s front garden early last year, Ann tells Care2.com. Her dog spotted the cat hiding under some bushes. At the time, he was thin and seemed nervous, but accepted the bowl of food she put down for him.
The following evening, the cat returned – and the next, and the next, and the next. He stayed a month in total, each night coming a little closer to the house.
Eventually, however, Bosche’s husband urged her to take the cat to their local animal shelter in the hope of finding him a permanent home. Their family already had two cats and a dog at the time, so Ann reluctantly agreed.
As soon as she dropped him off, she was already having doubts. One of the staff told her that the cat was banging his head against the bars of his cage. “I cried the five miles back to my house,” Ann says.
‘Guardian angel’
She began checking the shelter’s website for news of the cat, but he wasn’t listed among the animals up for adoption. She hoped that meant he’d already found a new home.
Bosche would only find out later that the cat had, in fact, escaped from the shelter just 20 minutes after she left him there.
It was early one morning, a month on, when she heard her husband talking to someone in the kitchen. Who should she see when she got there but a longhaired tabby cat, who she recognised as Mr Fancy by the distinctive white tip on his tail.
“I started crying and quietly said ‘Oh my baby, Hi Fancy’”, Bosche told Care2. “He turned, saw me and ran to me, talking and squealing the whole way. I truly think he was saying, ‘I found you! I’m home now.’”
There was no question of taking the cat to the shelter a second time.
“This cat spent a month traveling along busy streets, railroad lines, and rough neighbourhoods trying to find me,” Bosche says. “I think he had a guardian angel looking out for him, directing him back to my house.”
Now Mr Fancy is well settled into his new home, alongside the family’s Dachshund, Gracie, cats Miss Bosco and DJ, and two new kittens, Rupert and Miss Junior. Just like Mr Fancy, all of them are rescue pets.
“He belongs here,” says Bosche. “Mr Fancy will never want for a home, food or love again.”
