Lost cat makes miraculous journey home from Yellowstone to California
ROSEVILLE — On July 1, Alex Bitts was walking into work at Sutter Roseville Hospital when she stopped near a drainage ditch outside after hearing what she said was a cat "yowling."
"Cats generally don't yowl like that unless something is wrong," Betts said.
She went down and looked into a small cement tunnel to find a cat barely holding on to life.
"It took me a while to get the cat close enough to see it because it didn't want to come close," Betts said
As an animal lover at heart, Betts did what she says was the right thing to do. She DoorDashed canned cat food to work and brought a cup of fresh water during her break.
"As soon as I opened that first can, he poked his head up. He recognized the sound, so that indicated to me that he was a pet," Betts said.
The next day, Alex returned with more food and a dog kennel. She was able to get the cat inside, took it home, nurtured it for a few days and eventually turned it into the Placer SPCA in Roseville.
One month before that, Susanne and Ben Anguiano were camping in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with their two cats. While transferring them both from the truck to the camper, their cat, Rayne Beau, pronounced "rainbow," escaped and ran-off into the woods. They notified a park ranger after they could not find him, only to hear the cat might not make it out alive.
"He goes, 'Good luck. If your cat doesn't make it home tonight, good luck,' " Ben said.
After searching for five days, they gave up and returned to their home in Salinas, California.
"I felt like I was abandoning him," Suzanne said.
After the cat in Roseville was surrendered to the SPCA, the cat was scanned for a microchip. The scan revealed the cat was registered to Susanne Anguiano. It was Rayne Beau.
"I still didn't believe it. I was just so overwhelmed that this could be true and I didn't want to have false hope," Suzzane said. "It's not even plausible for a cat, from where we were, to get out of Yellowstone."
Their theory is that Rayne Beau hitched a ride knowingly or unknowingly with someone who just so happened to live in Roseville.
"A miracle. God placed these signs. As we look back, all of the signs were there," Ben said.
The news of Rayne Beau's near impossible journey shocked Alex.
"I think things lined up the way they were supposed to. It wasn't me necessarily, but somebody working through me," Bitts said.
Placer SPCA says an impossible journey home like this was only made possible by Rayne Beau being microchipped. If you haven't microchipped your animal, Placer SPCA can do it for only $15.