Lifesaving cat and his owner reunited after 9 long days

Puyallup resident Michelle Boudrie and her Siamese cat, Pewee, have always had a special bond.

When Pewee was born five years ago, his mother tried to eat him, and he was barely surviving. Boudrie ended up bottle feeding the Siamese cat, solidifying the special bond between the two.

“I was trying to keep him alive,” she said. “I think that’s why we’re so close.”

Their bond doesn’t stop there. Pewee alerts Boudrie by pawing at her face when she’s about to have a seizure. Boudrie has a seizure disorder, and suffers from multiple sclerosis.

“If I’m going to seize, he paws at me,” Boudrie said. “He’s the only cat I’ve ever had that does that. You can’t train them to do that, they just know.”

Pewee went missing Dec. 13 when Boudrie’s 14-year-old daughter, Marissa Mandalski, who has cerebral palsy, was coming in the house and Pewee ran out behind her. Boudrie thought she would never see her beloved cat ever again. She went out every night looking for him, convinced he had either been hit by a car or taken in by someone.

On Dec. 23, Boudrie stopped at Metro Animal Services to fill out a missing pet report for Pewee. Animals that are brought in as strays, like Pewee, are held for three days before they are evaluated for adoption.

“I saw Michelle walk in with a flyer for Pewee, so I grabbed the lost pet report form,” said shelter assistant Jennifer Rollins. “I get really familiar with the animals while they’re here, so when I got a closer look at Michelle’s flyer, I brought her back to go see if the Siamese cat we had was hers.”

Sure enough, the Siamese at Metro was Boudrie’s Pewee. According to Rollins, Siamese cats typically are adopted fairly quickly from the shelter.

“When Michelle saw him, she was so emotional,” Rollins said. “I opened the cage and she grabbed him and started hugging and squeezing him. She couldn’t contain herself.”

Since Pewee had been missing, Boudrie was so distraught she thought about canceling Christmas celebrations in her household.

“My biggest fear was that he would get killed on the road,” the 54-year-old Boudrie said. “Or that someone would keep him.”

“When we were reunited, I was on-the-top-of-Mount-Rainier excited when I found him,” she added.

Rollins says the important thing to takeaway from Pewee and Boudrie’s reunion story is to license and microchip your pets and keep the corresponding contact information up to date.

“It doesn’t happen every day that cats are reunited,” Rollins said. “Dogs are reunited with their owners all the time, but it’s pretty rare for cats since they look alike.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 10:42 AM with the headline "Lifesaving cat and his owner reunited after 9 long days."