Utah cat takes surprise trip to California in an Amazon box
Lehi (UTAH), May 5: Galena, a 6-year-old house cat from Utah, likes hiding and playing with cardboard.
Earlier this month, the combination of the two made for a stressful trip in an Amazon package, a feverish search, a California rescue and a tearful reunion.
Her family is still waiting to “reintroduce cardboard to her again,” owner Carrie Clark said Tuesday, because they don’t want to stress her out.
Clark got Galena as a kitten after her aunt rescued a pregnant feral cat. The American short hair with calico and Siamese colouring has been a constant companion and source of emotional support.
“I’ve been through a bunch of health things and she and I have gone through all of that together. And she’s she just has this extra great part about her personality that’s very loving. And she can tell when you don’t feel well,” Clark said. “And she’s just really, really special to me.”
So when Galena disappeared on April 10, Clark was beside herself.
They searched the neighbourhood, put up flyers and posted notices on Facebook lost pet pages in Lehi, Utah.
“Not knowing what had happened to her was pretty excruciating,” Clark said, “I cried my eyes out for seven days trying to figure out what had happened.”
Clark also ran through all the worst-case scenarios, wondering if the cat could have gotten out of the house and been nabbed by a predator or run over by a vehicle.
Clark said she received a “text that changed my life” on April 17, saying that Galena’s microchip had been scanned, so Clark knew she had been found somewhere.
Soon after, she got a call saying her cat was near Riverside, California, after being found in a box along with steel-toed boots that had been returned to an Amazon warehouse.
Clark’s husband had ordered several pairs of boots, kept one and returned the rest in a large box on April 10.
“We realized that that our sweet kitty must have jumped into that box without us knowing,” she said. (AP)
