Awww Alert: Homeless Man Reunited with Cat

by Josie Raymond · 2010-02-09 15:24:00 UTC
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It's enough to make even a dog-lover tear up. This morning the San Francisco Chronicle published a story about Daniel Harlan, a 58-year-old homeless man, and Samantha, his missing pug-nosed Himalayan cat. He says he bought her in Oklahoma for more than $2,000 four years ago, "back when I had money."

Three days ago, Daniel returned from the store to his tent under the freeway to find Samantha gone from her leash. The police and the local animal shelter told him they couldn't help find his cat. So he went to the newspaper that had once snapped a family portrait of sorts of him and Samantha, seen here. The article that ran today printed Daniel's cell phone number. Oh no, I thought, he'll be barraged with hateful calls.

Quite the opposite, he told me when I reached him on the phone. He got about 80 supportive calls today, from as far away as Australia and Mississippi. About an hour ago, Daniel happily told me, he and Samantha were reunited. Earlier in the day, after seeing the article in the Chronicle, a man called Daniel and told him that he had his cat and had found her tied to a fence. ("Which I don't believe," Daniel said.)

Whatever happened, now Daniel and Samantha are back together and not likely to be apart any time soon. "I just went and got her a brand new leash, a brand new collar and a brand new buggy to push her in," Daniel said.

Photo credit: Mike Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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