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Blind Cat, Stolen from SF Shelter, Found Wandering Harlem

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Workers from Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center in San Francisco with Jack Daniels (Ben Margot/AP)

Here's another happy ending for a pet-with-microchip story, courtesy the San Francisco Chronicle. Last week a black cat, almost completely blind, was spotted by animal control officers wandering along 110th Street. They took it to the shelter, and after scanning its microchip, found the registered owner: the San Francisco SPCA!

It's a mystery how the cat, named Jack Daniels, wound up in Manhattan, but thanks to a Good Samaritan named LeeAnn Falciani, he's been returned to the shelter and put up for adoption again. Falciani happened to be on the phone with her cats' vet, Dr. Jennifer Gabriele, when the vet received an email asking for help returning Jack to the west coast. Falciani stepped up, taking a week off of work to escort the blind cat back.

In May 2009, the San Francisco SPCA had taken Jack and his brother Jim Bean from animal control officers. Jack was suffering from scarred corneas because of a viral infection, and he relied heavily on his brother "as a sort of seeing-eye cat." The staff had wanted them to be adopted together, but Jack disappeared a week later. "How or why that happened, I can't say," said SPCA spokeswoman Jennifer Lu. "But we had the police involved, volunteers looking for him. We were very worried." Jim was later adopted, and hopefully his brother's newfound celebrity will help him win a nice home.

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Comments [rss]

  • mellow_fellow

    The whiskey is actually Jack Daniel's, so the cat's name should be just Jack Daniel. And the other whiskey is Jim Beam, not Bean.

  • Wza

    Poor thing.

    Hopefully he'll find a good home.

  • what an awesome looking cat, I hope he is reunited with his brother, they should be adopted together.

  • projectsincerity

    That cat even scares me a little.

  • RevWaldo

    Whatta face!

    I'm a blind cat

    With a seeing-eye man

    If I mistake you for a scratchin' post

    I hope you understand

  • Spirit of 76

    Hopefully, the family that adopted Jim Bean will be willing to adopt Jack so the brothers can be reunited.

  • SatelliteTimes

    As if that cat hasn't been through enough they're gonna put him on a plane back to San Francisco? Retarded. They already lost him once, proving they're not fit to look after him.

    By the way, your headlines still suck & are misleading.

    "Blind Cat, Stolen from SF Shelter, Found Wandering Harlem"

    vs

    "How or why that happened, I can't say," said SPCA spokeswoman Jennifer Lu.

    There's no mention of thievery.

  • No sir, YOU suck and are misleading. From the Chronicle:

    "A week after the pair were put up for adoption, Jack Daniels vanished from his enclosure. Someone had catnapped him."

    "So it remains a mystery as to how the nearly blind black cat, abducted from the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals a year ago, ended up on the streets of Harlem last week."

    Or I suppose the blind cat chewed his way out of his enclosure, and ran across America to Harlem all on his own? Go fly a kite.

  • youngpro

    you, saxena, and sexy chung seem to be the only gothamists to reply...keep it comin'!

  • LaliP

    this was the greatest thread today!! lmao

  • SatelliteTimes

    You are such a knuckle dragging meathead. Shouldn't you be on a nice beach in Staten Island flying your own kite?

  • Nonetheless, JS is right.

  • youngpro

    wait, asshole. youre always talking about how it's the owner's fault if an animal escapes from a house. just 2 weeks ago you bitched at everyone here when a kitten in the Bronx managed to escape from a house and into the sewer system to be found later and whined about how it was the owner's fault (as always with you).

    you never seem to make any sense, and for that NO ONE WILL EVER TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY

  • he was stolen not escaped. you have NO BRAIN stem. do you really then he escaped and fly to NYC and hailed a cab to Harlem???

  • SatelliteTimes

    Here's the thing... If this cat was stolen & flown to NYC, it would have been a thief with a huge heart, right? I mean, cats don't fly for free. That means the cat's owner would be frantically searching for this cat & that person would have stepped up to the plate, or WILL step up to the plate. Fact is, even shelters f*&$ up & lose track of animals while in their care. That cat could have ended up on a truck while seeking a quiet place to sleep & then ended up here. That cat could have escaped & been moved here by good intentioned people. We don't know. Just like the shelter "doesn't know HOW" it happened. Nobody knows the facts, so tall, cold glasses of STFU for anyone that ponders how the thief flew the cat to Harlem.

  • Spirit of 76

    You yourself note that flying is not the only way to get from coast to coast. Who's to say the thief wasn't relocating to NYC by car and brought him along? If indeed the new "owner" cared so much about Jack, I would think we would have heard from him or her by now. That we haven't leaves two main possibilities. One is that they don't care. The other is that they knowingly stole him and are none too keen to admit to the crime.

  • youngpro

    you fucking believe it was stolen? YOU FUCKING KOOL-AID DRINKER.

    I'll throw down my retirement and this year's bonus and bet that this 'animal group' made up that fucking 'cat-nap' story as an excuse for the cat having escaped from an unsecured place.

  • SatelliteTimes

    Whatever, should have been including in the piece. I'm not going to whine about it. He's still a caveman.

  • Spirit of 76

    Consider yourself lucky. Sometimes JDS will just curse at you, like today. Other times, he'll simply delete your comment, especially if you point out an actual error on his part. Indeed, odds are that this very comment will disappear in the next hour or two, so cache it in your head just to see I'm right. JDS is not above abusing his supreme power on the comments sections.

  • SatelliteTimes

    Oh, but I already know his style! The last time I commented about his headline, he deleted some comments of mine AND accessed my email info to send me the UNSUBSCRIBE LINK a few times. I wish that I was kidding. But it's ok... I understand that he's a total meathead with self esteem & ego issues.

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