October 11, 2022
There’s one Kingaroy kitty who won’t be allowed to stray far from home in future after using up almost all of its nine lives while on the run.
Twelve-year-old “Itty” went missing from a property in the Booie area earlier this year.
“She went out one night and never came home,” owner Darren Stibbard told southburnett.com.au.
Darren and his son Ethan, 8, searched and searched for Itty but with no luck.
Ethan was devastated.
“My son grieved for weeks,” Darren said.
(Itty’s formal name is “Rain” but she was just an “itty bitty kitty” Darren explained.)
Thinking they would never see her again, the pair threw out all her cat toys.
Then eight months later, Darren received a phone call out of the blue.
A farmer about 10km away had caught a cat in a trap on his property on the other side of Kingaroy.
Itty ended up at the RSPCA in Kingaroy where a scan of her microchip revealed her true owners.
“We couldn’t believe it when we found out that she was still alive,” Darren said.
“Ethan had spent months asking me, ‘Do you think she’ll come home?’
“I used to say, “It doesn’t hurt to have a bit of hope’ ”
Oddly, Ethan had a dream about a week before the reunion that he saw Itty but could not get hold of her as she kept on running away from him.
“He asked me what did that mean, and I said the cat is probably still out there somewhere,” Darren said.
“When we got the phone call, I couldn’t believe it.”
Darren is a great believer in the value of microchipping.
“If you lose your cat and it’s not microchipped, you don’t get it back. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
“To me it just makes sense.”
Itty lost a lot of weight during her eight-month adventure.
“She was incredibly skinny compared with what she was when she left,” Darren said. “But she seems to be unscathed and seems very happy to be home.
“She was Ethan’s cat and lives on the end of his bed now.
“He’s really happy.”
And Itty is now an “inside cat”.
“I will not let her out. I don’t want to be going through this again!”
Pawnote: RSPCA Kingaroy is running critically low on cat litter. If anyone can help, please drop it off to the shelter near Kingaroy Airport. Every bag counts!
What a wonderful and endearing story. I am so pleased for you Ethan, you would be over the moon to be reunited with gorgeous Itty. My beautiful grey cat Danny, who is microchipped, disappeared from home a month ago and even though a couple of people have sighted him, I am sadly unable to locate him. I desperately hope that he will return to me. Beautiful photos!