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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/so_tangled on 2026-03-10 07:03:08+00:00.
So me and my husband went to gather pussy willows, as we do every spring because I adore them. We know there is a place near the sand quarry where they grow, so we went there and after looking for some time we saw a stray cat. The cat ran to us, meowing, asking for pets, trying to be cuddly. It was chilly outside, it was raining, there were a few homes not too far away from the quarry so we thought that maybe the cat wandered from there. It stuck around while we gathered pussy willows, meowing and rubbing on our legs, and after we got in the car and moved, the cat started screaming and running after the car. I opened the car door and it jumped into my lap. We couldn’t leave it there, so I took some photos, posted him in FB groups with my number, we went to a vet clinic to see if the cat has a microchip (which he doesn’t) and spent 2 hours sitting at the vet waiting for someone to call and say “hey that’s my cat”. We didn’t want to take him to our home as we already have 2 cats and we are renting. No one called, no one commented on the post, no one messaged. After thinking for a bit we decided to take the cat in, as we couldn’t leave it and all the shelters we called just have no place or no resources to take on another animal. We named him Bug, took him home, quarantined him in another room, he was at our place for a week. Then today I saw a post in FB group that a cat is missing, near the same area where sand quarry is. I wrote to a person who posted, they said that their grandma’s cat is missing, I asked for some pictures and apparently it is Bug (real name is Buddy). I asked some more questions to make sure it’s really the same cat, everything matched, I called him Buddy multiple times through the day and got a response, so I was sure. My husband got home from work a couple of hours ago, told him that I found the owner, we took Buddy back to his home, grandma was tearry but scolded us for taking a cat. We suggested that she microchips him, there are programs that does it for free every spring, but she was not happy with the suggestion as he “always goes out and always comes back”. Lesson learned - do not take in cats that look stray because they might not be😆 I’m just happy that Buddy is back home with his owner.
TL;DR We took a “stray” cat from a sand quarry, kept it for a week at our house and it turned out to be some granny’s cat that wandered off. We gave him back to her at the end.