It's no surprise to people who have been around Thompson for awhile that the people who work at the Juniper Centre are a very dedicated and committed bunch. I've come to find that they carry this empathy over from their professional lives to their personal ones. Recently a couple people from the Juniper Centre found my missing cat and kept an eye on her until I brought her home.
I have a two-year-old female short-haired mixed cat. My fiancé and I adopted her from one of the many kittens his parents had at their farm in Grandview, Man. when we lived in Dauphin before moving up here. We called her Puff, because of the smoky grey markings on her back.
Puff is an adventurous cat, to say the least. If there is a door that is usually closed, and someone goes to open it, quick as a flash she'll bolt inside hoping to discover something really special. When my mom and I would go for walks around the Riverside area, where my parents live, she'd follow us around like a faithful puppy. Despite the fact that she got too close to the big dogs that live behind our house once and was chased up a telephone pole, where she stayed for at least a day and night, we started to feel comfortable enough with letting her outside to get some fresh air and exercise. What we didn't count on was that her curiosity would take her across town all the way to the Eastwood area.
I let Puff out on the afternoon of July 16. After a couple of days went by and she didn't come back, I got worried, so my fiancé and I decided to print off some flyers with a picture of her, her description and some contact numbers people could reach us at. We put these flyers on many telephone poles in the Riverside area but we got no calls about our missing cat. I decided that the next step would be to put a classified ad in the Nickel Belt News, hoping that someone would pick up a copy who knew something about my cat's whereabouts.
On the weekend of July 24 and 25 the manager of one of the Juniper Centre's residences for women phoned the Thompson Citizen and left a message, saying she thought she had found my cat. I was so excited. That Monday I got another call and I went to a residence in the Eastwood area of town where, sure enough, Puff was waiting for me in one of the home's bedrooms.
Turns out the little rascal jumped into one of the Juniper Centre's vans when the manager and one of her residents were checking out a garage sale across the street from my parents' home. The manager told me that when they were driving the van back they heard a faint meow, but thought it came from outside of the van. Later on they saw that the cat was actually inside the van! It stayed near the Juniper Centre residence for the next few days until the manager happened to pick up a copy of the Nickel Belt News with Puff's advertisement in it and gave me a call.
When I went to go pick up my cat I found her surrounded by friendly people and very well taken care of. She was definitely happy to see me again, but I know by the way the staff and residents at the home treated her that she was in very good hands.
My fiancé and I were both delighted to have our cat back. It really is true that pets become part of the family, and we missed her very much! It's thanks to some of the kind-hearted workers at the Juniper Centre that she is now back where she belongs - and she won't be allowed near garage sales any time soon!
