Reunited and it feels so good: Microchip returns cat to family after 10 months apart

Ten months had passed without a whisper of their whisker-faced friend.

Alfonso and Sherrie Meletiche, a couple from Fort Myers, Fla., had lost their family pet, Baby, while making a long haul truck delivery in Southern California.

When they pulled over to make a delivery at a commercial district near Rancho Santa Margarita, they were going to let their outdoor-air-loving feline take a walk. At the sound of a loud noise, the Maine Coon mix broke loose of her harness.

A search team could not find her, and weeks turned into months. Hope turned into despair.

Alonna Meletiche sits on the couch with the family cat Baby, who had been missing for 10 months.

(Courtesy of the Meletiche family)

And then a phone call came in — an unexpected one, but certainly one that Alfonso and Sherrie’s daughter Alonna knew was not a prank. Gail Landau, the founder of Catmosphere Laguna Foundation, had reached out, compliments of microchipping technology that was extending a lifeline for family and pet to be reunited.

“I was shocked,” Alfonso said of Landau’s call. “I couldn’t believe it because I, myself, gave up. I said, ‘There’s no way. There’s no way that we’re ever going to get her back,’ but when Gail called, I was overwhelmed, and I was also shocked. …

“Booked a ticket, I believe that very same day, and then I had to cancel it because she said she got away again. I said, ‘Oh my god.’ It’s like feeling this emptiness all over again, just when she was right there within reach.”

In the weeks preceding the call, Baby had been masquerading as a five-star hotel guest at the Montage Laguna Beach. Passersby had taken to feeding the cat, including resident Nancy Welch, who wound up corralling the feline following her second flight.

Baby, pictured, is a Maine Coon mix cat.

(Courtesy of the Meletiche family)

“The big mystery is how did the cat get down from Mission Viejo to Laguna,” said Welch, who commented that Baby was living her best life at the luxury resort. “What I keep laughing about is I keep saying it’s like a marketing ad for the Montage, that the cat got herself back to the Montage after being at Gail’s house.

“She was there. Then Gail had her, was trying to basically foster her until Sherrie and Alfonso could get there, and the cat escaped from her place. She is … two communities north of the Montage, so the cat had to get from her community back down to the resort.”

The Meletiche family received the good news, and Alfonso flew into John Wayne Airport, nervous as a cat in hopes that Baby would still remember him.

She did.

Sherrie Meletiche, center, with husband Alfonso, hold the family cat, Baby, after she was returned home this week.

(Courtesy of the Meletiche family)

Alfonso and Baby were on a plane headed home on Monday. In keeping with her recent resort lifestyle, Baby had cabin accommodations — albeit in a carrier — on the flight to Florida.

“I must have shared that story with the whole airport,” Alfonso said. “Everyone that can hear me, I told them, and they were in awe. They were shocked. They said, ‘What? 10 months?’ I said, ‘Yes, 10 months.’

“I sort of gave up a little bit, but my wife never gave up, and as soon as she heard news, she demanded that I book a flight and go over there and pick her up.”

Just a year before Baby’s great escape in Southern California, Alonna had taken her in for shots. She made the decision at that time to have her microchipped.

Sherrie, left, and Alfonso Meletiche sit on the couch, while family cat, Baby, takes a rest.

(Courtesy of the Meletiche family)

Susan Hamil, a founding director of the Blue Bell Foundation for Cats, a sanctuary for senior cats in Laguna Beach, said all Blue Bell cats are microchipped. A native of Baton Rouge, Hamil looked back on her experience providing aid after Hurricane Katrina in discussing the importance of the technology.

“Hurricane Katrina was a life-changing moment in this country for a lot of things, and one was lost pets,” Hamil said. “I went back and worked in Katrina and worked at the LSU vet school for a few weeks, and if those pets had been microchipped, they could have gotten back, they could have been reunited with their owners in a matter of days or weeks, once everything settled in.

“But because the vast majority of the pets didn’t have chips, then there was no way to reunite them with their owners, and so they just got dispersed all over the Southeast and up in the Northeast and everywhere else. The majority of those pets were never reunited with their owners.”

Hamil added that there was an early barrier to acceptance for microchipping, but stories like Baby’s are proof to her of how integral pets have become in the lives of their families.

“Pets have moved from the backyard, outside, feeding the stray cat, to now sharing the table, sharing the bed, and people willing to drop everything,” she said.