{"id":48300,"date":"2025-11-22T04:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48300\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T04:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:47:07","slug":"new-york-family-reunited-with-cat-10-years-after-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48300\/","title":{"rendered":"New York family reunited with cat 10 years after escape"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York family has been reunited with their cat<\/a> 10 years after the pet slipped out of their home and disappeared.<\/p>\n

The Montclair Township Animal Shelter in New Jersey said in a Facebook post<\/a> that a Good Samaritan recently brought in a stray cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd of course, the first thing we do is scan for a microchip,\u201d the shelter said.<\/p>\n

The scan immediately identified the animal as belonging to Sean Haberle, an upstate New York resident who was living in Montclair at the time that Asa went missing.<\/p>\n

Sean Haberle, a resident of New York\u2019s Finger Lakes region, was recently reunited with his cat, Asa, after 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBINGO. MICROCHIP AND REGISTERED! The family still had the same phone number,\u201d according to the shelter.<\/p>\n

The cat, named Asa, had been adopted by Haberle as a kitten<\/a> a decade earlier, according to WABC-TV.<\/p>\n

Asa vanished after getting through an open window screen and climbing into a rain gutter. A rescue attempt by Haberle failed when a ladder gave way, sending the rescuer to the ground as the cat ran off.<\/p>\n

The Montclair Township Animal Shelter in New Jersey said in a Facebook post that a Good Samaritan recently brought in a stray cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I found her, went and tried to save her on top of a rickety ladder. Long story short, the I reached out, the cat freaked out,\u201d Haberle told WABC-TV. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe ladder went out, I went down, cat took off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family searched extensively, posting flyers, checking with shelters and veterinarians, walking the neighborhood daily and keeping Asa\u2019s microchip information up to date even after they later moved to New York\u2019s Finger Lakes region.<\/p>\n

A microchip scan immediately identified the animal as belonging to Sean Haberle, an Upstate New York resident who was living in Montclair at the time that Asa went missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always hoped that we\u2019d see her somewhere. Looked everywhere. And then eventually, she just never turned up,\u201d Haberle told WABC-TV.<\/p>\n

No sightings were ever reported. After the family moved to upstate New York, they still thought of Asa.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy middle son and I talked about it probably a month ago,\u201d Haberle said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder what ever happened to that cat. It was such a sweet cat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shelter said the discovery of the chip allowed staff to deliver the kind of news they rarely get to give.<\/p>\n

The shelter is pleading for help as it is in desperate need for cat food donations to give to families who need help feeding their fur babies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the call every shelter dreams of making,\u201d it said in its Facebook post.<\/p>\n

According to Haberle, the family was in disbelief when the shelter called to let him know that their missing cat was found.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought, this is some kind of scam,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife vetted it, and it turned out to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelter staff said Asa cooperated during the full-body scan that verified the match.<\/p>\n

The shelter said this story was made possible only because the chip remained properly registered and linked to an active phone number.<\/p>\n

The shelter used the case to remind pet owners of the importance of proper registration.<\/p>\n

It also wants to use the joyous occasion to plead for help as it is in desperate need for cat food donations<\/a> to give to families who need help feeding their fur babies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York family has been reunited with their cat 10 years after the pet slipped out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6123,6530,57,9,11,10,6124,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-48300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-cats","9":"tag-dogs","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-pets","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}