Smokey the Scottish Fold spent 24 hours lost and alone before a kind stranger took him in and reunited him with the owner who'd been searching everywhere: 'She literally rushed to the clinic crying happy tears!'

Ayala Sorotsky • Writer and Editor

Jun 5, 2026 3:00 PM EDT

We love a Good Samaritan who saves a cat!

We can't imagine the stress and horror a person who has lost their cat goes through. Searching by foot, posting online, calling shelters and vet offices - cat pawrents would do anything to find their cats and bring them home. Cats are our family, and that's very clear. It was also clear to one woman whose cat was found by a kind man from the r/notmycat community. She searched for her cat for over 24 hours, and as cat pawrents ourselves, we can't even imagine what she had gone through.

Our beloved cat once fell from the third-floor window and disappeared. We were devastated, but that lasted for a couple of hours, until we found her under a bush, scared, confused, and hurt. We took her to the vet, of course, and it has been a good few years since then. But we can't imagine going through a 24-hour search, not knowing where our cat is.

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This person did the right thing. To us, the right thing is always tapping into the collective knowledge of the online feline family. It's not only that cat people are the kindest people on the internet, but they're always at the ready to help anyone with questions about cats. We have a theory that it comes from the knowledge that helping someone who needs help with a cat is, as a byproduct or directly, helping the cat. And we think any cat person would agree - a happy cat makes a happy cat person. So knowing a cat is doing better because you could help, even from afar, even from the other side of the world, because a person turned to the online cat-loving collective - will always make us, and any other cat person, happy.
And besides, cat people hold so much experience and information that they can share. So a person in need of advice about cats will always find someone who has the exact answer that'll help the kitty. Thi sis why it's the right thing to do. Asking for help is never a weakness, especially with cats - because the online feline family is one big strength.
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That's such a good piece of advice! People trying to steal purebred cats actually exist, and we're appalled by it. First of all, why would you steal someone's cat? Like, we know why - they want to sell them and make a profit. Whish leads us to ask the second question - why in the name of all the fluff would you think it's ok to use an animal for profit? Not thinking of the animal's best, that's for sure. Greed really blinds people sometimes. But when it comes at the expense of a pet, it makes it way more disgusting.
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