Submitted by Nancy Hall
(June 12, 2022)—Ali Rice is trying to solve a furry four-legged mystery and she’s hoping readers of HK-Now.com/Haddam Killingworth News will be able to help.
At the end of May, her boyfriend, Jeff Mansolf, noticed a cat standing on the side of Beaver Meadow Road. He texted Ali to tell her about the female kitty, who was huddling under the overpass for Route 9. When he arrived home, they returned to the area with food and water, but found that she had vanished.
“We kept driving by, but we didn’t see her,” Ali said. “We called, but there was no response.”
Sue Hurley, who lives near the overpass, heard about the cat, started putting food out and eventually was able to catch the kitty, an almost pure white longhair with big, beautiful eyes.
Ali picked the cat up and brought her home, which she shares with a cat and a dog. There, she discovered the kitty had been declawed on all four paws, leaving her completely unable to defend herself in the wild.
She posted a photo and a brief summary of her story on Haddam Facebook sites, generating many comments and more than 100 shares, but no claims of ownership or clues about where she came from or whether she ran away from home or was abandoned.
Thinking she might be microchipped, Ali took her to a vet where she learned the cat does not have a chip, is about three years old and is negative for feline immunodeficiency virus, commonly known as FIV. The vet also dewormed her and treated her with a one-month course of tick repellent.
She continued to post on Facebook – this time with a new close-up photo – and continued to get many comments and shares, but no useful information about where the cat came from.
Ali said she’s doing all this for a simple reason. “I’ve always enjoyed saving animals,” she said, “turtles, anything.”
“I hate to think someone just dumped her,” she continued. “I put myself in the cat’s situation, being lost and confused and homeless, and I want an answer. I want to either get her back to her family or find a good forever home where she’ll never have to experience anything like this ever again.”
Ali said she has a couple of offers from people who want to adopt the cat, but she’s reluctant to do that until she’s sure she doesn’t have a family somewhere who’s missing her and doesn’t realize she’s been found.
Anyone who has any information about the Exit 8 cat, as she has become known, may call Daun Kowalski, Haddam’s Animal Control Officer, at 860-682-2710.
Photos courtesy of Nancy Hall and Jeff Mansolf
