Buttons Journey

Meet Buttons!  He has a unique story.  I believe he may have been dumped originally because he showed up over at Jack's but he was not feral.  We have some apartments down the street and he followed me there.  A tenant offered to care for him so we hauled cans in and had him neutered.  Then we returned him to the apartments. 

Buttons never wanted to go inside her apartment.  He loved being out.  He sort of belonged to the apartment complex as the mascot.  The tenants all knew Buttons.  But one tenant had two small children and decided (without asking me first) to get them a sandbox.  Naturally Buttons, being a cat, assumed they had given him a giant litter box...  And the next thing we knew, Buttons was missing.

His owner questioned one of her children about Buttons.  The child said a white man took Buttons away.  He was race specific because his Mom had both black and white friends.  We knew he was telling the truth.  But where was Buttons?  What had they done to him?  The children's Mother denied knowing anything about Buttons or the guy who took him.  But we knew she was lying. 

We had flyer's made with Buttons picture and another tenant in the complex said she had seen a cat that looked just like him a few days prior at WALMART!  Unfortunately she didn't know he was missing at the time or she would have brought him home.  And so our search began...

The Walmart he was seen at had heavy road construction.  There was a lot of detours and very heavy traffic.  We passed out flyer's to all the shops there as well as to several Walmart employees.  Yes, he had been seen!  But not in days...  Where was he?  We went to Walmart every day searching and no Buttons anywhere.  Finally we put an ad in the newspaper along with his pic.  You will notice he sleeps in the most unusual way...  And that pose is what identified him.

The woman called and said she thought she had Buttons!  He showed up at her house and she was so kind to him.  She gave him food and water.  Then he took a nap and she saw the way he laid and remembered seeing that picture in the paper!  His owner went and before she could get out of her car Buttons saw her and jumped out of the lady's lap and ran to her!  Everyone cried and I cried when they told me.  Buttons was trying to get home and had gone the long way around the construction.  He must have been exhausted, starving and thirsty when he stopped at her house that lucky day.  I cannot imagine how terrible his journey must have been.  He had been missing for two weeks by then!

Buttons had to stay inside the apartment while I insisted the tenant responsible for dumping him must move out immediately.  I threatened to evict her if she refused.  It took a while but we got her out.  Finally Buttons was free to go outside once again.  And to this day he is there.  Yay Buttons!