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Word on the street is that Jason West lost, and found, his two cats.
My heart goes out to anyone whose pets vanish -- it carries with it a pall of uncertainty which carries a unique kind of pain. That he has been in touch with the people who found them no doubt brought with it a tremendous sense of relief.
The cats were found without collars by someone who took them to be abandoned or strays. By the time they saw the posters around town, they had already found a permanent adoptive home for them, but I've been assured the mayor will be reunited with his furry loved ones.
West is an apartment-dweller, and likely keeps his kitties inside, so they may have looked bedraggled in short order. I'm familiar with the litter, and I know that they were allowed outside before he adopted them, which can cut both ways: it may have made them more able to survive out there, but it certainly made them more likely to look for a way to get back out into the world if he'd attempted to keep them in. Cats who take to outdoor living often don't want to give it up.
I don't know if they had collars or not when they went missing, but the fact that they were found collarless should serve as warning to anyone with naked, inside pets: sometimes, they get out.
The fact that this community is full of the sort of people who take in stray animals and care for them is one of the most sincerely nice things about this community.
Hopefully the mayor will have the good sense to buy collars and ID tags now, if he hadn't before. If the collars were lost, and I've had more than one cat myself who was a brilliant escape artist, there are collars which are nearly escape-proof, but they aren't the cheap ones. Good thing his board gave him a handsome raise a year into his term of office.
