WATERFORD, Mich. – A cat was reunited with its owner in Waterford on Friday after a stranger found it in Tennessee and drove more than 11 hours to bring it home.
Tucker, a tuxedo cat who likes to vacation in Florida, has been on quite the trip after getting lost in another state.
On the way back from Florida, Tucker disappeared from a hotel in southern Tennesee and its owner, Jamie McCall, had to continue to Waterford without him.
It had been weeks since he first got lost, but on Friday he returned home for the holidays because a stranger was willing to drive just over 600 miles.
Tucker’s owner Jamie McCall couldn’t contain her excitement as James “Hurricane” Heathfield pulled into her driveway.
Heathfield drove 11.5 hours from Cleveland, Tennessee, to get Tucker back to his owner in Waterford.
“Are you Tucker’s mother?” he said getting out of the car.
It was a moment McCall had been waiting for weeks.
“Thank you so much, you don’t know what this means to me,” she said with Tucker in her arms for the first time since he was lost.
Over the summer, Jamie traveled to Florida with Tucker. In early November, on her way back to Waterford, she stopped at a hotel in Cleveland, Tennessee, the date Tucker disappeared.
“I searched the woods behind there and walked through the neighborhood,” she said.
“Well, it’s a busy road and that’s why she (Heathfield’s granddaughter, Holly) was worried about him,” Heathfield explained.
“Well, it’s amazing he didn’t get run over,” McCall said. “Because I went there originally to see if he was on the road.”
When she couldn’t find Tucker, she took to social media, pleading for help. Within an hour, a Tennessee woman responded saying she had found Tucker.
“To find out that he had been taken care of and cared for by someone as lovely as your granddaughter, I mean,” Jamie said.
Holly kept Tucker safe until his grandfather could come and take him home.
“I’m just very happy, and you know, it’s Christmas, and right now with the way the world is, seeing something like this, you know, it warms my heart,” Heathfield said.
James, also known as “Hurricane”, is a tourist bus driver and says he is used to long car journeys.
“I mean, who would take a cat, take care of it, then return it to you hundreds of miles away? It’s overwhelming for me,” Jamie said.
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