For two months, a California couple was heartbroken and worried about the whereabouts of their beloved cat after it went missing in Yellowstone National Park, a wilderness area larger than some U.S. states.
But as summer ended, so did their tragic story. Benny and Susanne Anguiano found their lost cat, Rayne Beau, last month after an animal rescue group called them to tell them their cat had been found in Roseville, California, about 800 miles (1,287 km) from Yellowstone.
In June, the couple went camping in the national park, where their cat was startled by something in the wild. Rayne Beau ran off into the trees and they didn’t see him again for 60 days. During the trip, they looked for him every day, putting out treats and toys in the hope he would come back, but to no avail.
“We had to leave without him,” Susanne Anguiano told KSBW. “That was the worst day because I felt like I was letting him down.”
In early August, Rayne Beau benefited from a microchip.
The couple received a message from Pet Watch, an animal tracking service, saying their cat had been found in Roseville at the local branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A woman had found Rayne Beau alone on the street and brought her to the shelter.
“He was completely exhausted,” said Susanne. “He probably didn’t have much strength left to go on.”
Susanne first shared her rollercoaster story on Facebook, explaining that she hadn’t told it sooner because “it was too traumatic.”
How Rayne Beau traveled the 800 miles from Yellowstone to Roseville remains a mystery, but the couple hopes that sharing their story might prompt someone to come forward with details. In their KSBW interview, the couple also urged other pet owners to install trackers to avoid losing their pets forever.
An estimated 10 million dogs and cats are lost or stolen in the United States each year, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Only one in 50 cats in shelters is returned to their owners, but with a microchip, nearly two in five are reunited with their families.
