Lost and Found
by Jill Duff-Hoppes
When Amanda Beal’s cat, Hank, went missing several months ago, she searched high and low for the 13-year-old, black-and-white kitty. She blanketed her Lake Mary neighborhood with flyers, posted on social media, and biked around the community looking for him, to no avail.
Eventually, a dejected Amanda resigned herself to the fact that she’d probably never see her cat again. But fortunately, this tale (or rather, tail!) has a happy ending. Hank and Amanda were finally reunited thanks to Cat Tail Corner Adoptions, a Central Florida nonprofit organization that partners with PetSmart Charities Adoption Centers in Casselberry, Altamonte Springs, Lake Mary, and DeLand. Here’s how Amanda’s missing kitty saga unfolded:
Last year, the Oviedo High School alum moved to suburban Lake Mary from a rural area in Geneva, where her three cats were accustomed to an indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Sadly, things went awry not long after the move. Hank disappeared and weeks later, another of Amanda’s cats died after being hit by a car. The loss of that kitty spurred Amanda to redouble her efforts to find Hank.
During her search, Amanda received several calls from Good Samaritans who thought they’d found Hank, but every lead turned out to be a cat that wasn’t hers. That is, until she received a call from a Cat Tail Corner volunteer who feeds feral cat colonies, including one in Lake Mary near Amanda’s neighborhood. After being shown one of Amanda’s flyers, the volunteer realized the colony had a friendly (and hungry) newcomer that might be Hank.
The volunteer called the phone number on the flyer and told a hopeful Amanda that she’d found a kitty matching Hank’s description. But by the time Amanda made her way to the colony, Hank had vanished once again. So, the next time the volunteer saw the cat at the colony, she scooped him up and arranged to meet Amanda at PetSmart in Casselberry. Sure enough, the kitty in question was Hank. When Amanda cuddled her fur baby for the first time in more than three months, she was overwhelmed with emotion.
“The reunion was so wonderful,” says Amanda, a senior staff assistant for the City of Altamonte Springs. “I cried for a good 30 minutes while holding a happy, calm, warm Hank. It was a moment I’ll never forget.”
To pay it forward, Amanda is now a volunteer with Cat Tail Corner. On Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, she visits the rescue’s kitties that are up for adoption at the Casselberry PetSmart. She makes sure they have food and water, cleans their litter and crates, and showers them with love and attention.
“The way this whole thing happened, I felt moved to help them out and give back,” says Amanda. “I love what Cat Tail Corner did to reunite me with my beloved Hank. Just thinking about that reunion, I get goosebumps.”
Juanita Joachim, director of Cat Tail Corner, is thrilled that her organization was able to return Hank to Amanda.
“That was awesome, and Amanda was very grateful,” says Juanita, who has volunteered with the rescue since 2016. “But this is something that unfortunately happens quite often.”
Juanita offers this sage advice to cat owners:
Keep your cats indoors, which protects them from cars and predators such as coyotes and foxes.
Spay and neuter your cats to help reduce the pet overpopulation problem. Low-cost clinics in the area include Spay N Save in Longwood or Central Florida Community Pet Clinic in DeBary.
Get your cats microchipped, and keep the chip registration information up to date, to increase the odds of being reunited with your kitty if it goes missing. In Amanda’s case, Hank was neutered and chipped, but the chip didn’t scan properly.
Like most rescue groups, Cat Tail Corner Adoptions is always in need of foster parents, volunteers, and adoptive families for its cats and kittens.
To learn more, visit CatTailCornerAdoptions.org.