SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A grey cat living an extraordinary life of visits to the beach and trips to the lake went on his biggest adventure alone: travelling hundreds of miles from Wyoming to California in the United States.
But how the feline named Rayne Beau – pronounced “rainbow” – made it home two months after getting lost in Yellowstone National Park during a summer camping trip remains a mystery.
Benny and Susanne Anguiano and their two cats arrived at Yellowstone’s Fishing Bridge RV Park on June 4 for the cats’ first trip to the forest. But soon after they arrived, Rayne Beau was startled and ran into the nearby trees.
The couple looked for him for four days, even laying out his favourite treats and toys. When they finally had to drive back to Salinas, California, on June 8, Susanne Anguiano said she was crushed but never lost hope she would find him.
“We were entering the Nevada desert and all of a sudden I see a double rainbow. And I took a picture of it and I thought, that’s a sign. That’s a sign for our rainbow that he’s going to be okay,” she said.
In August, the Anguianos received amazing news when a microchip company messaged them that their cat was at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville, California, nearly 1,448 kilometres from Yellowstone. He was only about 322 kilometres away from his home in Salinas.
A woman who first saw Rayne Beau wandering the streets of the northern California city fed him and gave him water until she trapped him on August 3 and took him to the local SPCA.
The next day, the Anguianos drove to Roseville and picked up their cat, who had lost six pounds.
“I believe truly that he made that trek mostly on his own. His paws were really beat up. Lost 40 per cent of his body weight, had really low protein levels because of inadequate nutrition. So he was not cared for,” Susanne Anguiano said.
The couple still doesn’t know how their cat got to Roseville but believes he was trying to get home. They have reached out to the media hoping to fill in the blanks. Benny Anguiano said that besides microchipping their cats, they now have also fitted two of them with air tags.
