Emotional Homecoming: our cat survived 8 days alone in the wild!

Six summers ago, James, Kristina, and I sought out on an exciting adventure: operation Bangor Humane Society! Kristina and I desperately wanted a little kitten to join our 106 family; at the time, James was considered our “106 extension” so he came along for the ride (good thing because he ended up paying, too!!)

Family Photo! Left to Right: Kristina, Katie, Vinnie, Bernie & me (crazy morning hair)

Within minutes we all experienced “love at first sight.” Two beautiful, loving, 6 month old male orange tiger cats named Milo & Otis melted our hearts. They looked into our eyes and said: “please take us home, we promise to be the best sons you ever had.” Their purrs radiated from their dingy society cage as they brushed up against one another with loving affection.

Without thinking about the logical details (you know, having two cats in college, finding a place to live, paying for two cats, and most importantly discussing our purchase with our other roommate, Katie) we proudly adopted Milo & Otis and welcomed them into our family.

Although Milo & Otis are adorable names, we wanted our cats to have much more sophisticated and manly names. We renamed Milo: Bernard (after Kristina’s first patient in nursing school) and James named Otis: Vincent (for no particular reason except that we thought the name jived well with Bernard). Formally, we named the cats: Bernard Diesel BAP and Vincent Malone BAP. BAP stood for: Butler, Atkinson, Pinkham, my three roommates and mine combined last names. They come to “Vinnie & Bernie.”

Our cats proved themselves friendly, loving, and accepting. However, our journey together had not been easy.

Situation #1: Our roommate Katie is from Alaska and when she arrived “home” to Maine, Vinnie peed on all the clothes in her suit case! Katie was not impressed, and she immediately said: “the cats have to go!” I threatened to move out with the cats and that night marked one of our worst fights in college (I don’t know if I mentioned, two of us had just traveled from Montana to Maine by car without sleeping for 36 hours straight!)

Just snoozing in the drier

Situation #2: We never confessed this to our parents (and if they read my blog, they know now), but we were EVICTED from one of our college apartments for exceeding the one pet per apartment limit! Consequently, we were forced to move to an apartment that cost each of us over $200/month more than our previous apartment!

Situation # 3: After college, Bernie, Vinnie, and I moved in with James and Duke (our 80 pound chocolate lab). Well, needless to say Bernie & Vinnie did not like Duke, AT ALL. Duke had no idea what to think of these two “weird creatures” in his world so he decided that the best thing to do is to bark….and bark….and bark….and two months later, he is still barking and the cats are still hiding in one room.

They love each other now!

Despite our “situations” and our challenges together, I can proudly admit that I have the two most beautiful, loving, precious cats that anyone could ever find. They accept anyone who comes into our home with open paws; they lick your tears when you are sad; they cuddle together in the cutest positions and when you look at them, there is no way that you could ever feel one ounce of stress; they purr you to sleep at night; they sit on your lap and provide you company when you are working on the computer; they whack their big Brother Duke around when he is out of line; and they provide 24/7 entertainment.

I never believed this would happen!

Last week, Vinnie escaped to the wild through our living room window in the night. Vinnie is, well I will say, “challenged.” He needs Bernie to clean him up in “private” areas (this is the type of “challenges” I am talking about). After eight days of endless searching, sleeping nights, and ongoing stress, we hung our hats and cried one last time. We accepted that there was no way that our “challenged” fat cat could survive eight days in the wild alone. We concluded: Vinnie was dead.

Vinnie's favorite sleeping position!

Four hours after our acceptance cry, we had packed up the remaining items in our Portland apartment and loaded our car to head north for the summer. We were 1 mile from our house when James’ phone rang.

I answered, and an elderly woman on the other line stated: “hello, is this the home of ‘Vinnie?’”

I could barely contain my voice, I screamed: “YES’”

She states: “oh dear, I have your Vinnie.’”

James whipped the car around and we drove to her house. Before we arrived, I started experiencing doubt. The woman said: “oh dear, there is no way this cat weighs 16 pounds…. But, come any way, you never know.’”

We arrived at the woman’s house, and she and her two older children were waiting for us at the door. I walked through the door, and I could not believe my eyes: there standing before me was my beautiful, handsome, perfect man, Vinnie. He looked cachexic and incredibly dirty, but other than that he was unharmed.

"this looks like a pretty good place to nap."

Tears of joy flooded from James and my eyes. I picked him up and squeezed him, and he purred so loud I thought my ear drums would burst.



The woman who found Vinnie had just returned from dinner with her children. She saw him walking outside and said: “oh, I remember seeing a flier about a missing orange cat.”

She lost her flier, so she went to her neighbor’s house and collected the flier. Her daughter bended low and called: “Vinnie.” Vinnie starting running toward her immediately. He was apprehensive at first, but after several minutes, he trusted the daughter enough to let her pick him up.

They transported him to their house and called us immediately.

I am FOREVER grateful to the family who helped us reunite with our precious Vinnie. They went above and beyond to ascertain Vinnie’s safe return.

After our infinite gratitude and multiple hugs, we returned to the car for our long trip from Portland to Bangor. Typically, Vinnie and Bernie MEOW like FOUR CATS in HEAT during car trips; however, this day was incredibly different. Vinnie purred in James’ lap the entire two hour drive, and after a few minutes of travel, Bernie found his way to James’ lap and laid quietly on top of Vinnie for the remainder of the trip.

*Vinnie has not tried to escape to the wild since his safe return.

A meow massages the heart. - Stuart McMillan