Incredible journey: Wayward cat found 700 miles from Londonderry home

LONDONDERRY — When Paul Ambler returned from Michigan last month with his missing cat in tow, he sat her down and told her if she disappears again, he’s not coming to get her unless she goes to Florida.

In March, one year after bonded pair Kumiko and Kiri were adopted, Kumiko scurried under the back fence of the family’s Londonderry home with a rabbit in her mouth and wasn’t seen again until December, when someone plucked her off the streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“I have asked her multiple times and she won’t tell me how she got there,” Ambler said. “We suspect that someone in a town over found her as a stray, kept her and didn’t take her to a vet and had a kid that went to the University of Michigan, which is in Ann Arbor, and just took her and she got free.”

But it’s just as reasonable to assume she got there on her own, Ambler said.

Volunteers at the shelter were able to identify a microchip embedded between Kumiko’s shoulder blades, just under the skin.

When the shelter called Ambler’s daughter, Shaelee, 19, nine months after Kumiko went missing, Shaelee was in tears, and disbelieving that her cat had traveled 700 miles, Ambler said. Up until then, Shaelee believed the cat was dead.

But for Ambler, his response wasn’t immediate joy, it was the realization that he’d have to book a flight to Michigan, in the dead of winter, to rescue his daughter’s cat.

“She just had to find the only place colder than here,” Ambler said of the cat. “The following Tuesday, I went complete with my JetBlue approved 8.5-inch under seat pet carrier, got on the plane at Logan and flew over to Detroit.”

When Ambler arrived at the shelter around noon the following day, he said the woman at the front desk was so excited to see the “poor sap that had to fly from Boston to Detroit to pick up his wayward cat” that she announced his arrival over the shelter’s intercom system.

On the ride back to the airport, wayward cat in tow, Ambler said Kumiko wasn’t sociable or affectionate until he called her by her nickname, Ms. Cheesy Poof.

“I was trying to scratch the cat carrier with my finger and she was having none of it,” Ambler said. “And I was like ‘What’s the matter, Ms. Cheesy Poof?’ and her eyes went wide and dilated and she put her head against my hand and started meowing.”

Though Kumiko wasn’t much different in appearance despite a bit of weight loss, her meow was not that of the chirpy kitten he once knew. It was a deep meow, one of a cat that had endured unknown traumas in the wilderness.

Once at the airport and through security, Ambler headed to the bar with six hours to kill until his flight. He sat down, had some food and a few drinks and started asking everyone around him if they were allergic to cats.

“The bartender was like ‘Why do you keep asking about that? Do you have a cat?’ Then everyone wanted to see the cat,” Ambler said. “And I was like ‘This screwball is a total flight risk, can I please put her back now?’”

For the next several hours, Ambler told the story of his wayward cat to passersby before boarding his plane.

Shaelee was waiting up for Ambler and Kumiko when they arrived home later that night around midnight, excited for the reunion between Kumiko and her sister, Kiri. In the time that Kumiko was missing, the family adopted another kitten, Daisy, who did not bond well with Kiri.

“That was a mistake because Kiri immediately hated Daisy,” Ambler said. “She spent most of her waking moments trying to kill her.”

When the pair got home, Kumiko poked her head out of her cat carrier, gingerly stepped out and was immediately attacked by her sister. Over the next few days, Kumiko and Kiri reacquainted themselves and are happily back to normal and even invite Daisy to play with them.

Since Kumiko has been home, the once outdoor enthusiast won’t set foot outside the house or play with her old pal, Maggie, the family’s 12-year-old Border Collie/Black Lab mix. The two used to be affectionate, and even snuggled together. Ambler speculates Kumiko likely has some trauma from dogs she encountered on the road.

“I kind of wish that whoever took her in all this time ago had taken her to the vet or a shelter to be scanned for a microchip,” Ambler said.

Based on a study of more than 7,700 stray animals, the American Veterinary Medical Association reports that cats with microchips are returned to their owners 38.5% of the time while cats without microchips are only returned 1.8% of the time.

“Animals that are microchipped go back to their owners much faster because it’s much easier to find who their owners are and return the pet,” said Hannah Kinsey, shelter manager of the Salem Animal Rescue League. “If you don’t microchip, you’re relying on the owner calling around to everyone or posting on a lost and found website.”

Because animals are typically only held for seven days in shelters, pet owners run the risk of never seeing their animals again if they choose not to microchip.

“My wife has always wanted a cat that will just sit in her lap while she’s watching TV,” Ambler said. “(Kumiko’s) super, super affectionate now and we’re so glad she’s home. She’s finally the lap cat my wife has wanted.”

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