Man’s cat disappeared on their trip home—5 months later, a stranger allergic to cats drove 8 hours to deliver the early Christmas gift
A pet might mean the world to their human. So losing them can be really devastating. A family was also heartbroken when their cat, Shadow, was lost during a road trip from Alaska to Oklahoma back in July. They had lost all hope and thought that they would never get to see Shadow again. But five months later, the family received a call about their missing cat. With a lot of help from the park rangers and a couple in Canada, the family was able to reunite with their cat before the holidays, per CBC.
The cat had been lost in the Canadian Rockies, so the family had little hope that he would be able to survive. It all began when the owner, Jeremy Barton and his family stopped at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park during their drive on the Alaska Highway. Barton noticed that Shadow was not around and panicked immediately. "I started freaking out. I started walking around with his food bowl." The man looked around the area for quite some time, but there was no sign of the cat. The man braced himself to deliver the news about the lost cat to his young sons, Auri and Valor. The news wasn't easy on them, but the family had no other option but to go back home without the cat.
"It was pretty devastating. They both cried for a couple of days," Barton recounted. However, around five months after the incident, park rangers in the area were able to spot the cat. They were able to get information about the cat to the family through a couple from Fort St. John, Bruce Kosugi and Christine Sutherland. They were present at the hot springs when the rangers found the cat. The couple drove for eight hours and 690 kilometres to take Shadow to Fort St. John, where they would find a way to get the feline back to his family. On top of that, Bruce is highly allergic to cats and had to wear a mask all through the drive with Shadow.
Eventually, Christine would fly to Winnipeg with Shadow, where Barton would meet them and take Shadow back to his family. Barton couldn't thank the couple enough for their heartwarming gesture. "I’m just really thankful to my Canadian friends up north, my Canadian brothers and sisters up north," he went on. "Especially with all the things going on between our two countries recently, I'm just happy that we were able to do something good with each other and help each other out."
Christine was simply glad that she could do something nice for the family and didn't think anything was too much. "You can never do too much, you know, when it comes to helping families at any time of year in any kind of distress. This cat meant a lot to those two boys. And it's so neat that they're going to see him before Christmas." Barton will drive from Winnipeg to Oklahoma to get the cat back to his sons. The journey would take him around 16 hours. The cat was doing well even after being lost for such a long time. The dad told Energetic City that his sons were really happy to have Shadow back and were even ready to give up their Christmas presents if that made it easier and more affordable to take the trip from Winnipeg to Oklahoma.