WEST READING, Pa. – For more than half a decade, Aria’s journey was filled with unexpected turns, loss, hope and newfound love.
“It’s exactly a one-in-a-million story,” said Joe Salender, with Berks Community Cats.
Aria first went missing six years ago.
“She was actually picked up in the rain from one of their neighbors, and they brought the cat to the vet,” Salendar said. “Had a scan, and the vet missed the chip, so they assumed it was a stray cat, and they adopted it, and they had the cat for the last six years.”
Suddenly, Aria was in a new home, always carrying a piece of her past but opened to new love.
“This cat was just so loving, such a nice cat,” Salender said.
Then one day, again, adventurous Aria got lost.
“I got a call from somebody who’s done some rescue work for us in the past, and she said they she had found a cat outside,” Salender said.
When he scanned her, he found what the vet had missed.
“We found a chip, and I called the people that were registered to the chip, and it turns out the cat was missing for six years,” Salender said.
It was a moment of disbelief for a family who thought their beloved cat was long gone.
“The lady I was talking to, she was just floored,” Salendar said. “You just tell it in her voice…’Oh, my God, that’s Aria.’”
In a moment of joy, Aria’s original owners were faced with a difficult decision.
“By law, the chip was registered to the original owners, and they had the first choice of taking the cat back or not,” Salender said.
After seeing how well the family who found her all those years ago had taken care of her, Aria’s original family made its decision.
“They were willing to surrender the cat to those people, which put the other people over the moon…they really fell in love with this cat,” Salender said.
Aria’s incredible journey shows how one small pet can bring enough love for not just one but two homes.
“Six years is the first time…I’ve been doing this for 30 (years), 35 years, and it’s the first time I’ve seen anything of this kind of duration where the cat was missing, found, and found in good health,” Salender said.