Mystery solved
Guelph real estate agent explains BooBoo the cat’s incredible journey
GUELPH — BooBoo, the six-year-old tabby that was found as a stray in Morriston and brought to the Guelph Humane Society on March 17 has been reunited with its owner — in Watsonville, Calif.
She’d been missing from Watsonville for four years.
A Guelph real estate agent appears to have solved the mystery of how BooBoo the cat ended up in Morriston, more than 4,000 kilometres from her California home.
Corie Fisher of Coldwell Banker says she heard BooBoo’s story while listening to CBC radio on March 28 and called in the next day with an explanation of what she believes happened.
The six-year-old tabby was found as a stray in Morriston and brought to the Guelph Humane Society on March 17.
It was there a microchip scan revealed BooBoo’s past.
When the humane society contacted her original owners in California, a happy reunion followed. The story made international headlines.
But how did BooBoo end up in Morriston? Fisher told a CBC reporter last week that she held the key to the mystery.
Fisher says she rented a house in Morriston to a Toronto couple who originated in California.
The man was the head chef at the downtown Toronto eatery, The Ace.
But they abandoned their home in early February after he lost his job.
When Fisher couldn’t touch base with the couple, she went to check on the home in late February and was greeted by two cats who rushed in from outside as soon as she opened the front door.
One of them was BooBoo, identifiable because of a curious head tilt caused by an injury suffered while playing with her pit bull brother back in California.
Fisher said her husband nicknamed the mystery cat “kitty side walker” as they cared for the two cats, in the vacant house, while figuring out what to do with them.
“I’m a cat person. I’m an animal lover,” Fisher says.
“I decided I can’t just dump these cats into the system. I have to find them a forever home.”
So she posted BooBoo’s plea on Facebook and it wasn’t long before another cat lover reached out and took BooBoo in.
The second cat was returned to the Toronto family that had adopted her out as a kitten.
Unfortunately — or fortunately given what has transpired since — the woman that took BooBoo in, called Fisher back a few days later to say it wasn’t working out.
BooBoo wasn’t getting along with her three other cats.
The Kitchener Humane Society couldn’t take BooBoo because she was found in Puslinch. Fisher says that’s how BooBoo ended up at the Guelph Humane Society.
She was confident the affectionate feline would find a home.
“I had a really funny feeling about this cat,” Fisher says.
“Then I heard the story on CBC and said, ‘that’s kitty side walker!’ It’s too unusual a story.”
During a phone interview Friday, Fisher said she’s ecstatic with the outcome even though two cats had to suffer in the cold, for at least two weeks, after being abandoned.
The couple who abandoned them is believed to have moved out east. No one has able to reach them, Fisher says.
“It’s very unusual. I honestly don’t know what happened. I know she (the woman) had some health problems toward the end of last year. They had a baby boy, maybe ninemonths old.”
They paid their rent and utilities for February, but they left the place in an awful mess, Fisher adds.
“I’m sure they had their reasons for doing it, but this is the lives of two little animals. That’s really bad,” she says. “I’m sure if someone were available they would be pressing charges.”
Fisher has also been able to piece together how she thinks BooBoo ended up away from her family in Watsonville.
The couple that abandoned BooBoo drove up from California in a food truck. Fisher speculates the couple had either found BooBoo before the move, or BooBoo hitched a ride unknowingly, since the cat was known to jump into strange vehicles on occasion.
The cat seemed to hate being left behind, and would jump into the car when her family was getting set to go somewhere, Watsonville’s Ashley Aleman, the cat’s original owner, told the Guelph Mercury Tribune.
But here’s where the story gets a little weird.
This isn’t the first time Fisher has had to deal with abandoned pets at a rural rental house.
It’s not as uncommon an occurrence as many would think, she says before pausing to think of an example.
“In that same house — oh my gosh, 20 years ago — I had a young couple move in,” Fisher says excitedly.
They were referred to her by a neighbour and when the couple stopped by her real estate office, she happened to have that same Morriston house available for rent.
They were a “fairly unusual couple,” Fisher says.
“They left the house one wintry March day,” abandoning the rental property in similar fashion.
When Fisher dropped by to check on them, she walked inside and discovered the house was vacant except for two alligators left in a child’s pool, upstairs in the middle of the house.
One of the alligators succumbed to neglect. The heat had been turned off in the house. The other gator went to an electrician from Aberfoyle who liked reptiles.
Fisher says it’s always sad to hear about animals being neglected or abandoned and she’s thrilled to know BooBoo’s story ended well.
The moral of the story is to get your pets microchipped, she adds.
“If your animals are out, by all means get them chipped.”