When hearing a meowing sound coming from a 16-foot container in the PODS warehouse he worked at as manager in White City, Dean Herigstand initially thought he was hearing things – and who could blame him?! After all, there’s no way a cat survives the distance the containers come from! The present containers had come in to the Oregon-based warehouse from Tucson, Arizona, which was well over 1,000 miles away. Still, Herigstand looked around and searched for where the noise was coming from, finally able to narrow it down to a container in the back. Like the rest of the containers, it had been padlocked by the owners, who moved their things from Mesa, Arizona to Grants Pass, Oregon. The log date showed that the container had been locked on June 3rd.
The warehouse manager called their office in Phoenix who called the box’s owners and gave Herigstand the permission to open it. Locating the right container thanks to the meowing sounds, he was able to open it and found a very thin, thirsty, frightened and starving calico cat. Shocked and surprised at his finding, he took the feline into the office and gave it water and food, and ended up naming the cat “Lucky.”
“She obviously belongs to someone back in Arizona, and we’re trying to find out who,” Herigstad said . “She cries like a cat in distress. She’s a little wobbly still. If we can’t find the owners, my mom said she might take her.”
It’s a miracle that the cat survived 27 days without food or water while in the container. Herigstad said that at the various stops, it had been parked inside and away from the Southern California sun’s heat, which was how the cat was able to withstand being without food and drink in all that time. Lucky’s finder learned that the feline did belong to the owners of the container – they thought their cat had disappeared. The happy owners will pick up their long-lost cat after the Fourth of July holiday.
Photo Source: Julia Moore / Mail Tribune
