The police returned an animal that had allegedly escaped 18 years ago to a cat owner in berlin. The black tomcat kimba had been handed over in a neglected condition at a police station, the police wrote on facebook on wednesday.
According to the report, he had drawn attention to himself last friday on a footpath in the suburb of marienfelde with a "plaintive meowing".
Because the animal had a chip in its body, the officers were able to track down the owner: peter fabian. The journalist told the german press agency that he was perplexed when the police contacted him 18 years after the tomcat disappeared.
Still on friday evening he picked up kimba and bathed him. The animal was very trusting, but starved, weak and apparently not in good health, said fabian. Apparently it had lived for a long time on the strabe. Kimba, at that time about one year old, had run away in 2000 a few months after a move from munich to berlin-kreuzberg – he had not settled in. Given the life expectancy of cats, he didn’t think he’d ever see him again after just one year, says fabian. Cats usually have a lifespan of about 14 to 18 years, but with good care they can live to be 25 years and older.
After a veterinarian visit kimba is again with good appetite – it tries to internalize the term "house-trained", it hit in the contribution of the police. "The relationship with the second cat in the household is still in its infancy."Peter fabian was confident that the cohabitation with the now shrouded tomcat named katz would succeed – there were still territorial disputes. "I have to cope with that now," said fabian – he is thinking, for example, of separate feeding and privacy protection. To give kimba in his old age in the animal home, was not in question.
A photo of the police shows a somewhat shaggy tomcat with long white whiskers. According to peter fabian, some fur had to be shaved in the meantime because it was lumpy. "But that grows back."What kimba did in the long time of his absence, however, remains speculation. Police suspect it was "the adventure of a lifetime".
In munich a case had become known in 2014, in which a tomcat and his master were reunited after twelve years. The cat had been handed over to an animal shelter – by the man with whom the animal had been living for the past few years. The original owner had in the meantime moved away from munich and arrived after the animal was identified thanks to a chip. At the reunion the tomcat is to have been immediately trusting.
2012 had the wandering tomcat felix for headlines provided. He had escaped from a shelter in braunschweig in 2010 and reappeared one and a half years later in berlin. In the capital he had lived almost from birth mostly in the animal shelter. He seemed to consider the area as his territory. It remains unclear how felix covered the 240 kilometer distance. He was also recognized by his chip – and in the end settled with a family.