By Emily Darrell
Staff Writer

Former Powhatan resident Paula Vasquez describes herself as “not really a cat person.”
She doesn’t like the mess and hassle that come with keeping an indoor cat, and she can’t stand the smell of a litter box.

So when her husband’s job caused the family to relocate to Northern Virginia last summer, Vasquez decided to leave their 8-year-old calico, ReeCee, at her mother’s 100-acre farm in Cumberland.
Vasquez said she thought the cat would be happier there and “we could still see her when we came down to visit.”

For awhile the arrangement worked out. “She’d eat on the porch, then go play in the woods and then come back,” said Vasquez’s mother, Barbara Sprouse.

But sometime around early November, the cat stopped showing up on the porch to eat. Sprouse said the cat had gone missing once before, for a full week, so at first she thought the cat might turn up again.

However, for two months there was no sign of her. Sprouse said that on several occasions she rode her 4-wheeler through the woods calling for ReeCee, but never even caught a glimpse.

Both Sprouse and the Vasquez family – who were now living in Warrenton – assumed the cat was either dead or had taken off for good.

But then, on New Year’s Day, Vasquez said she pulled into the driveway of the family’s new Fauquier County home and there was ReeCee, sitting on the front step.
“I was just in total shock,” Vasquez said. “I’m still in disbelief.”

“She was a little underweight, but otherwise clean,” Vasquez said. “You would never have thought she had travelled 100 miles.”

Vasquez said that she, her husband, and their daughter, who is now a high school senior, all believe the cat to be the same cat they left behind in Cumberland.

“It’s a very oddly marked cat,” Vasquez said. “You would know if you saw her that it’s the same cat.”

However, no one has any idea how the cat could have gotten all the way to Warrenton or how she could possibly have known the family was even living there. Vasquez said the cat had never worn a collar, was deathly afraid of cars, and had never even seemed that attached to the family.

Vasquez said that since ReeCee’s return she’s done a lot of internet research, and has found many similar stories of cats travelling great distances to reunite with long-lost owners.

Powhatan veterinarian Dr. Nick Elam, when asked to comment on ReeCee’s miraculous journey, said: “It’s pretty far-fetched, but who knows? Stranger things have happened, I’m sure.”

As for ReeCee, she’s now living in the Vasquez home, although her litter box is in the family’s basement and Paula has a strict rule that her daughter must scoop it out every day.

“My dad was like ‘You need to bring her back [to Cumberland] and call Animal Planet and see if she’ll do the trip again,” Vasquez said.

“He wants her to wear one those little cameras and get her to film it.”