An eight-year-old cat from a military family slipped into restricted brush near Chevron’s San Ardo Oil Field during a roadside stop. After a tireless two-day effort by North County Paws Cause, a happy reunion took place Wednesday, August 5 at San Luis Obispo County Airport.
It was a day filled with relief for Roseannette Moreno. After more than a week, she was finally reunited with her beloved cat Sasha.
“Literally did not know what to do!” Moreno said. “Had it not been for the non-profit, I wouldn’t have been able to get her back.”
Moreno’s husband is in the U.S. Air Force Special Forces, and the family was racing to a new assignment in Washington when they made what was supposed to be a quick pit stop last Tuesday.
Unbeknownst to them, the spot they chose was next to the Chevron oil fields – a restricted area. And, what started as a quick roadside break turned into a family’s worst nightmare.
Sasha, their eight-year-old cat, slipped free of her harness and bolted into the thick brush.
“She whipped out of it, so we stayed there overnight, like, hoping that she would come out,” Moreno said. “While we were still there, he had contacted the non-profit, and they had coached him through some steps on how to get her out, but she didn’t come out all night.”
Moreno and her husband searched through the night, and after hours of trying to get Sasha to come out, the family had no choice but to leave.
“It is so terrifying but, with the military, there is not anybody that’s gonna be like, ‘Oh yeah, you can stay for your [cat],’ like, he had to check in,” said Moreno. “There was nothing that we could do.”
That’s when cat trapper experts with North County Paws Cause and SAV-Cats came in, but even they hit an immediate roadblock.
“I was out there for about five minutes calling her,” SAV-Cats cat trapper Kristen Kelley said. “I had cat food, you know, trying to get her, heard a couple ‘meows,’ and then security came and asked me to leave.”
Volunteers still worked nonstop, reached out to Chevron and finally got permission to set a humane trap.
Hours and hours went by and, just as the team was about to call it quits for the night Thursday, Sasha came out.
“We just got lucky, honestly…stubborn, maybe!” said North County Paws Cause cat trapper Kayleigh Villars. “We just didn’t want to leave without her!”
And because of that stubbornness, there’s now an incredibly rare, happy ending to this story.
“The whole thing about our outcome was reuniting Sasha with her family,” said North County Paws Cause director Laura Hughes.
Sasha will be back with what has always been her forever family in their new Washington home by Wednesday night.
