Lost cat 15 years ago is reunited with her owner

A cat that got lost 15 years ago was reunited, older and, perhaps, wiser, with her owner.

On Monday afternoon, Brandy, a brown tabby cat, returned to see her owner Charles, who adopted her when she was a two-month-old puppy in 2005.

“Is incredible. I think it’s inconceivable, ”Charles said Thursday.

“I saw her, picked her up and started purring and it was very emotional,” said the owner. “It was nice to have her in my arms again.”

“I did start crying because I thought about all the years that I missed her,” he said.

Brandy was found Sunday in Palmdale, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) away from where Charles lives in the San Fernando Valley, in the greater Los Angeles area.

The computer technician, who asked that his last name not be used, said Brandy was only with him for a few months after he adopted her.

“He went out into the backyard in the afternoon,” he commented. But when it got dark and the man came out to bring her into the house, the cat was not there.

Charles drove the streets in his car looking for the kitten, checked animal shelters, and posted signs with no luck.

“I was very sad,” he commented. “I wanted her back because when I adopted her I made a moral obligation to care for her for the rest of her life.”

The man feared she had been killed by a car or a coyote.

“But I was hoping someone would pick her up from the streets to take care of her, and I think that’s what happened,” he said.

Charles went on with his life. He moved to another place in the valley and adopted two other cats.

And then on Sunday she got a call from the Los Angeles County Animal Shelter in Palmdale and another from the company that made the microchip implanted in Brandy when she was adopted.

Charles had changed his address and home phone. But, fortunately, his cell phone was the same one that was listed in the information on the microchip.

“I was skeptical. I thought it must be a mistake, ”said Charles. He commented that he had thought that “maybe there’s a one in a million chance it’s Brandy. But after 15 years, it is highly unlikely. ”

However, “I said, ‘yes, the microchip wouldn’t lie.’

Monday afternoon he went to Palmdale to find Brandy. She was older and very skinny, he pointed out.

Brandy needed a little help – she was malnourished and weighed only about 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms)

“She basically weighed the same as when she was a kitten,” Charles said.

His fingernails had grown long enough to hurt his paws.

Charles suspects someone found her when she was a kitten and kept her all these years without bothering to check to see if she had a microchip implanted. She thinks she must have stayed alone or fled several months ago.

But he added that she was the same calm, delicate and sweet cat that he remembered.

Charles decided that he couldn’t bring Brandy into his one-bedroom apartment with his other two cats. But the cat is staying with her sister, who lives nearby, and he plans to visit them often.

“He doesn’t have a lot of energy. But she looks happy, ”commented Charles. “Purr a lot.”

“She seems to be happy to have a home again,” she said.

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