Ham on Wry Award-A Cat Named Willow



Willow Contemplates the Litter Box

Willow, a calico cat that disappeared from the home of the Squires family in Boulder, Colorado, resurfaced this week in New York City at an animal shelter.  Somehow, this clever feline made the two-thousand mile journey without alerting her owners that she wanted to see the world.  Ham on Wry has not yet substantiated this information, but it seems a New Yorker on a ski vacation found her and flew her to Brooklyn, where she has lived since.  No word yet on how she escaped her Brooklyn digs, but a man found her on the street and took her to an animal shelter.

When Willow's original owners adopted her as a kitten, they had her micro-chipped.  That provided the shelter a means of identifying both her and her Colorado owners.  The shelter contacted the Squires family Wednesday to alert them that Willow had been found after going AWOL for five years.  The family assumed that she had been killed by one of the coyotes that abound in the area where they live.  Willow disappeared when one of the workmen doing a remodeling project left the door open.  Since all cats have a heightened sense of curiosity, Willow took off for parts unknown.  Fortunately, in this case, curiosity did not kill the cat.

Anderson Cooper invited Willow for a guest appearance on his show, where she was reunited virtually with her Colorado family.  Two of the three children are old enough to remember Willow, but the three-year-old has yet to meet her.  Roscoe, the yellow lab, and Willow were buddies when she lived in Colorado; however, she and Zoe, the English Mastiff, will have to "sniff each other out."  Jamie Squires said that they had a second dog during the time when Willow lived there and the cat mimicked the dogs' behavior, apparently thinking she was one of them. 

Ham on Wry has one main concern in all of this.  After spending five years in New York, will Willow's return to Colorado be a case of, "How You Gonna Keep 'em down on the Farm, after They've Seen Pareeee(Paris)?"  Her sophistication might overwhelm her two country dog siblings.