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by Carrie Debrone
Kitchener Citizen​
   Loki is one lucky cat.
  His story brings to mind the famous tales of animals who survived against all odds, such as Homeward Bound. If this Kitchener cat could write, his personal story would likely fill the pages of a most interesting novel.
   The six-year-old, male, silver Tabby, went missing on November 2, 2011. His owners found him on January 9 – 69 days later.
   And, the cat’s story has certainly made for some interesting conversation at owner Susan Broughton’s All Things Tea shop in Belmont Village.
   Relieved and very happy to have him back home, Susan and George Broughton of 508 Doon South Drive in Kitchener, still don’t know who it was that rang their doorbell on January 9 to say that they thought they had spotted the missing cat in a nearby ravine.
   “This man, and I think it was his daughter, came to our door.    They must have seen one of the posters with our address on it that we put everywhere in the neighbourhood. We flew out the door and rushed to the ravine. In all the excitement of going to see if it really was Loki, and then finding out it was him and getting him to come to us, the man and his daughter must have left and we never found out who they were. We didn’t even get a chance to thank them.” Susan Broughton said.
   The Broughtons believe Loki got out of their house in the early evening when the door was opened, as they were entertaining visitors.
   “We checked the house before we went to bed as usual and saw our other cat Diva. I guess we assumed that Loki was with her but when I put out his food in the morning and he didn’t come I knew instinctively something was wrong,” she said.
   Within two hours, the family had printed 300 posters and started putting them up around their neighbourhood.
   “We plastered every lamppost and every mailbox bank. We went door-to-door and asked people to keep an eye out for him.”
   Although not an outdoor cat, Loki was not declawed and he has been micro-chipped.
   The family went almost every day to the Humane Society to see if anyone had brought him in.
Susan and George even took turns going out through the night for about a week wandering around the neighbourhood streets calling for him and shaking his food bag.
   “Everyone knew he was missing and I used to hear kids waiting for the bus calling his name into the woods,” Broughton said. “The whole neighbourhood was rallying for him.”
   Many times helpful neighbours called the family saying they had seen a cat in various locations, but it always turned out to be either another cat in the neighbourhood that was allowed to wander outdoors, or they were too late and the cat was gone by the time they got to the location of the sighting.
   As the weeks dragged on and trips to the Humane Society became part of the family routine, hope dwindled that Loki would be found alive – or ever found.
   “We assumed he was snatched by a coyote or that someone had taken him and kept him as their pet,” Susan said.
Christmas came and went. Loki’s stocking still hung in early January on the fireplace mantle. Susan’s three-year-old son began having nightmares.
   But Susan said her son never gave up hope.
   “He would tell us. ‘Don’t worry. Daddy will find Loki.”
   Then on January 9 a knock on the door changed everything.
   “He asked if we were still looking for our silver tabby, and said he thought he saw him in the ravine across from our house,” Susan recalled.
Rushing to the ravine, Susan said that her husband saw the cat, which they quickly identified as theirs, had just killed a mouse and was intently eating it.
   “George had a bag of food and kept offering it to him. It was as if he was almost wild again and too scared or confused at first to come. When he finished the mouse, he finally came to him and jumped into his arms,” she said.
   Loki left the house weighing 15 pounds and returned weighing 9.
   “We took him to the vet and although he’s lost a lot of weight, he is otherwise very healthy. He’s eating like a champ now!”
   Since his return, the family has put up another poster in the neighbourhood stating, “After 9 long, sad weeks, Loki is Home!!!”
   “It truly is almost a kind of miracle. We are just so happy to have him home. It was really awful losing him and not knowing what had happened to him. It’s hard to find closure when something like this happens. I asked for a miracle this Christmas and I feel like it came, I’m not sure everyone gets that.” Susan said.
   But one thing is for sure; the Broughton’s now know what to do if a pet goes missing.
Susan says she believes people treat apparently stray cats in their neighbourhoods differently than stray dogs, often reporting a dog but not necessarily reporting the cat.
   Putting up posters and letting your neighbours know that your pet is missing is first on their list and they said they would make sure the poster contains a phone number and address, and that it explains that calls are welcome at any hour of the day or night.
   The poster should also ask people to bring the cat they spot into their house, holding it there until the potential owner can come to retrieve it.
“I’m impressed that he kept himself alive. I don’t think we could have asked for a happier ending,” she said.