Cat reunited with family after 2½ years

Jimmy the tabby is WANAQUE back with his human family after going missing more than 2½ years ago.

The now-15-year-old brownstriped boy was found on St. Patrick’s Day about 10 miles from his home here and brought to the West Milford Animal Shelter Society. Volunteers took a photo and posted it on the shelter’s lost-cat Facebook page, where the Zelitsky family found it.

“If it wasn’t for the wonderful people at WMASS, we would have never had this happy reunion,” Susan Zelitsky said. Because Jimmy liked sneaking into parked cars through open windows, his family thinks he accidentally hitched a ride out of town rather than walking the whole way.

On Sept. 13, 2014, the night Jimmy left, Zelitsky said her husband let him go outside. But the cat that they’ve had since he was 6 weeks old didn’t return as usual when she called for him, Zelitsky said.

Susan Zelitsky called for Jimmy around midnight that mid-September night, and the family still couldn’t find him the next day when they searched the neighborhood. They hung missing-cat posters and reached out to police departments and shelters.

“We were devastated,” she said.

In the months that followed, Susan Zelitsky never gave up the search, and sometimes she would call out for Jimmy when she walked the dog.

“Not only me, but my kids and husband, too,” she said.

Jimmy was found March 17, three days after the late winter blizzard that hit the Northeast.

Shortly after he was brought to the shelter, volunteers placed pictures on their Facebook page called Real Cats at West Milford Animal Shelter.

In short order, the post was viewed nearly 27,000 times and was shared 600 times. Five days later, Susan Zelitsky saw her long lost Jimmy.

Susan Zelitsky contacted the shelter, found out more information and went there the next morning with her neighbor.

“When they opened the crate door, I said, ‘Jimmy is that you, bud?’ and he walked over and head butted me, she said. “I immediately started to sob.

“I called my husband and he came to the shelter. When he saw Bob, he did the same head butt.”

COURTESY OF WEST MILFORD ANIMAL SHELTER SOCIETY Susan Zelitsky of Wanaque looks on as Jimmy the tabby cat, missing for 2½ years, gives a head butt to her husband, Bob, last month at a shelter 10 miles from home.