The Lamb Family: Spencer is Home...Can you believe it?!?!

Our cat Spencer is back!!

Can you believe it?!
I know--Neither can we! It has been almost 8 months exactly since he went missing.

We never gave up hope that he was somewhere out there. We just had a strong feeling that someone else had taken him in or was feeding him. And it turns out that is exactly what happened.

A sweet woman named Jan had called me back in May after seeing our flyers saying she had seen a cat that looked like Spence and she had fed him a few times, but then she no longer saw him. I looked around her house back in May, but never saw him. Turns out that the people across the street from her had taken him in and fed him for most of the summer and he was crashing at their place, but she didn't know that. Then I guess he got out of their house and so Jan started feeding him again and he started to sleep in her garage over the past few months. She loves cats and I think would have taken him in full time, but her grandson and son in law are allergic.

I guess time had passed, and she had forgotten that he reminded her of the missing cat from April. Anyhoo, last week she was walking down our street and stopped to talk to the woman that lives across the street from us and asked her if a family on our street was missing a cat. I guess something had jogged her memory maybe and she had remembered the signs from the spring time, but didn't have the flyer anymore and couldn't remember where we lived or what our names were. The lady across the street knew that we were the ones missing a cat, so she took down Jan's name, number and address and told Jan that she would pass the info on to us when she saw us next. The other day our neighbor came over and told me about Jan and that Jan thought she may be feeding our cat. She gave me her number and told me to give her a call. Well, we were skeptical and kind of didn't want to get our hopes up and we actually let a couple days pass before we actually called her.

So, Jon called her today after he got home from work. Hudson and I called Jon our way home to find out that Jon was headed over to Jan's to see if she had Spence. At first, I asked Jon if he was going to take some pictures of Spence to show her and he said, well I don't need to take any pictures with me, because she has him inside her house right now! My heart started pounding super fast....I was so excited and hopeful, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. When we got to our neighborhood, we drove over to her house and Jon's truck was still there. (She lives a few blocks away). Jon came out and gave me this look that said it all. I got out of the car and he said, "Honey, it's Spencer." I was just in shock! I then went inside her house and saw my sweet baby and got to pick him up. It was so surreal. He looked a little different but still like Spence. He is a little lighter in color...she said he's been sleeping in the sun and I guess it has lightened his hair and he even has some spots now. He hasn't lost much weight at all...there are some generous stray cat feeders over on Kingfisher!

Jan and I went outside and we decided instead of trying to get him in his carrier we'd just put him in Jon's truck. So that's what we did. I got in my car to take Hudson home. And then when Jon opened his truck door to get in, Spencer jumped out of his truck! He was sitting in the front yard across the street for a few minutes and then he got spooked and then he jumped down the storm drain! We got some food from Jan and he finally came out and was eating food near Jan and when Jon tried to pick him up, he ran off again. We decided to go home and she said she would call us when she got him in her house again. A couple hours later she brought him over after she had caught him again. Phew...what an eventful evening!

We were not quite sure how to handle it, so we left him in his carrier for quite awhile. Kaiser was very curious and barked some and Boots hissed at him and wanted nothing to do with him. We decided until we can take him to the vet this week to get some shots and get checked out, we won't let him interact with Kaiser or Boots. So for now he's going to be hanging out in the garage. We both spent some time with him earlier and gave him lots of snuggles and hugs and he's all bundled up in a blanket on a chair in the garage.

It's is so crazy how things work out. We were so upset when he went missing....especially me. I cried and cried and was so emotional about it. (That was probably intensified by all the hormones in my system from being pregnant at that time!) I was so heart broken to have lost my baby and so sad. We said so many prayers about him being safe and returning home someday, and our prayers were definitely answered.

Now we will just have to see how he transitions with Boots and Kaiser and Hudson. Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer that we can smoothly transition Spence back into life at the Lamb house.

We'll keep you posted!

And thank you to those of you who prayed for us and kept us and Spence in your thoughts this whole time. We appreciate your support and concern so much. And a special thank you to Laura for helping make flyers and going door to door while I was at work the first day Spence went missing back in April. Also thank you to Julie for helping me and Jon hang so many flyers that first weekend he was missing. If it weren't for getting all of those flyers up, he might not have found his way back to us!

Lots of love!
Sarah, Jon, Hudson, Kaiser, Boots AND Spence!