Cleo the calico cat missing for 6 years to rejoin Edmonton owner

Cleo the calico cat is back.

Not all the way back yet, but that she was on her way at all is quite the miracle.

But Cleo is a survivor.

“She was the runt of the litter,” says Amanda Graham. “She was always really small. She almost died. She was crazy excited, with a lot of energy all the time.”

Graham last saw Cleo six years ago on her family’s farm in Kemptville, Ont., just south of Ottawa.

Cleo spent a lot of time outdoors, but for whatever reason got lost — a lot.

“It was a never ending cycle of us losing her.”

Finally she went missing for the last time.

Graham looked and looked for the scrawny feline, even put up some posters, without success.

‘We assumed the worst,” she said. “I really thought something had eaten her.”

Graham grieved, but eventually life moved on. She did too, moving back to Edmonton after finishing her schooling a year later.

“She was my first cat so she was really special to me,” Graham said. “It was tough losing her.”

That all changed Wednesday morning when a call came from an animal rescue agency in eastern Ontario.

Betty-Jean Matthews, owner of the Stuck in the Mud Animal Rescue, called Graham with the news Cleo had been last found September wandering the streets of Brockville, Ont.

A veterinarian noted a faded tattoo on Cleo's ear, an identification marker that hadn’t been used in Ontario for a decade.

Matthews used the tattoo to trace Cleo to the Edmonton veterinary clinic where she had been spayed in 2009.

Matthews made it her mission to find Cleo’s actual owner.

“My daughter did get a hold of one clinic in Edmonton that did spend 45 minutes with her and looked up every calico that was spayed in 2009 that they could find on record.”

A current photo of Cleo eventually matched up with one of Cleo as kitten on Graham’s Facebook page.

“I cried and cried,” Graham said once Matthews reached her. Cried because Cleo was still alive, but also because the people who found Cleo had cared enough to find her owner.

“She took all this time to find me? So far away? That's just incredible.“

Graham was amazed not only by the length of time, but also the distance Cleo must have travelled. It's nearly 60 kilometres from Kemptville to Brockville by car.

“I don’t know how she made to Brockville where they found her, because that’s a really far distance."

For now she can’t wait for the reunion with Cleo.

“I miss that darn cat so much.”