KERRVILLE, Texas – Lesa Baird spends a lot of her day cuddled up with her best friend, her cat Ella. The two were inseparable before the July 4 floods in the Hill Country, but now they are more connected than ever.
“There you go, I found you. Such a good feeling, isn’t it?” Baird said to Ella, scratching behind her ears.
The first thing Baird lost during the deadly July 4 floods was her house in Kerrville.
“I got up and I feel my purse floating by. I’m just going, ‘What?’” Baird said.
She said she almost lost her friend who was staying with her at the time.
“The water slammed the bedroom door shut. He almost drowned,” she said, grateful that he eventually got out.
Then, during her move to emergency housing, she lost Ella.
Baird frantically posted online describing Ella, who was wearing a red harness, but heard nothing.
Until 6 months later.
“We had a contained cat in a trap. She clearly had a harness,” said Kerr County assistant animal control officer Sarah Headrick, who took the call for a seemingly lost cat near the freeway in Kerrville.
Headrick took the terrified cat to Freeman Fritts Animal Shelter down the road.
“We noticed it had the harness on. I just started searching on the internet for ‘lost cat red harness’ and found the post very quickly from August of last year,” said animal shelter volunteer Shelly Sandy.
Sandy enlisted the help of Freeman Fritts veterinarian and Medical Director Dr. Shelby Key.
“I had found an article about what happened to her during the flood. And then we found that she was a client from, I think it was like 13 years ago, and so I managed to get her information that way and eventually got a hold of her,” Key said.
When Baird showed up to identify Ella, Key said all the effort was worth it.
“It’s amazing, she was just sobbing,” Key said.
Baird confirmed that, laughing while describing the moment she got the call from the shelter.
“They said, ‘I think we have your cat here with the red harness.’ And I just start bawling and I cried all day long,” Baird said.
When asked what Ella means to her, Baird said “apparently a lot.”
“I’m all hers,” Baird said. “She’s right there beside me, just follows me. She slept in the bed. She did not go anywhere without me around.”
Baird, Ella and two other kitties are settling into their new RV that was donated with flood funding.
Baird said it doesn’t look like a lot, but she’s lost a lot and is grateful every second of every day for what she’s been given. She now knows home isn’t a place, it’s wherever the love is.
Baird hopes other people who have lost animals will be able to have the same kind of reunion.
Key said immediately after the flood they found lots of dogs, but it’s common for cats to hide for a while after disasters.
She said they are still finding displaced cats just like Ella, so if you lost your cat, don’t lost hope. Call and check with local shelters.
As for everyone else, Key said to make sure to microchip pets in case they’re ever lost.
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