If you’ve ever lost your luggage while traveling through the airport, you understand how frustrating it can be to not know where your belongings are. Now, imagine that your beloved pet was one of those lost items!
A military family living in Germany recently moved back home to the United States. Patty Sahli and her family flew from Frankfurt to Boston, Massachusetts on a Lufthansa flight in June 2022. When they landed, their cat Rowdy somehow escaped her carrier to chase some birds and disappeared inside Boston Logan International Airport.
“They didn’t know where she was when we went to pick her up,” Patty wrote on Facebook. “She escaped her cage in the cargo area and they said she went to chase birds and they couldn’t catch her. She must be sooo scared.”
Patty was distraught when she picked up her husband, Rich, and was told that Rowdy was missing. The airline and airport did everything they could to locate the 4-year-old cat, but Rowdy somehow managed to avoid being caught for the next 19 days!
Several people saw Rowdy over the next three weeks, but nobody could get close enough to catch her. Lufthansa hired an animal tracker to help catch the cat, but even her favorite treats couldn’t lure her out! Eventually, airport personnel set up cameras, and the Animal Rescue League lent them humane traps, so the sneaky kitty was finally found and caught.
“Whether out of fatigue or hunger we’ll never know, but this morning she finally let herself be caught,” a spokesperson for Massport, the port authority that operates Boston Logan International, stated.
Rowdy Update: She has been handed off to @ARLBostonRescue as she awaits being re-united with her family. pic.twitter.com/fnB3342a2R
– Boston Logan International Airport (@BostonLogan) July 13, 2022
Rowdy has been thoroughly checked out by a vet and is in good health, so she’ll be returned to her family. Patty says she’s still “kind of in disbelief” that this happened to them, but she’s incredibly grateful and relieved to have Rowdy back at home.
“It was such a community effort,” Patty said. “We’re just so grateful to everyone who helped look for her.”
Welcome back, Rowdy! Something tells us the cat’s version of this story is a lot different than her humans’. Let’s hope she at least had a little fun exploring!
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