A stowaway discovered onboard a gravel barge in Victoria has been safely returned to her home in Sechelt after a long journey.
Victoria Animal Control Services received a call Jan. 24 after someone found a cat on a barge in the Rock Bay area. The barge had departed from Surrey, stopped in Sechelt and continued to Vancouver Island carrying aggregate — and an unexpected feline passenger — onboard.
When the cat arrived at the pound, staff scanned for a microchip and looked for an ID tattoo ID and collar, but found none. The file noted she was skinny and dirty, though staff said she was a good-looking cat.
The organization turned to social media, hoping someone would recognize the cat, a tabby with green eyes.
Senior animal control officer Ian Fraser said they initially didn’t know whether the cat was local or had come on the barge.
“Those kind of weird things do happen from time to time,” he said.
Kate-Lynn Dixon doesn’t use Facebook, but one of her friends recognized the cat, which belongs to Dixon’s son Elias Joe.
“She sent me the screenshot of the photo, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Duchess,’ ” Dixon said.
Dixon describes Duchess, an indoor-outdoor cat that “comes and goes as she pleases,” as “a handful.”
The family’s home is a two-minute walk from the gravel conveyor belt in Sechelt. Dixon’s theory is that Duchess was chased by a coyote, jumped on the belt and then just kept exploring.
Dixon contacted Victoria Animal Control the same day the cat was found.
It took a few days of sending photos back and forth to confirm the stowaway cat really was Duchess.
In her scared state, her fur was puffed up around her usually pointy face, and she was skinnier than normal. Duchess has two small kinks at the end of her tail, which were used to verify her identity.
On Jan. 26, Duchess started her journey home with the help of one of Dixon’s relatives who lives in Victoria. Traffic and ferry delays meant Duchess’s return trip took longer than expected, but the family was reunited around 7:45 that evening.
“My youngest son came with me and he was super excited,” Dixon said. The feeling appears to have been mutual: “As soon as I took her out, she jumped on Elias’s lap and just hung out with him.”
After settling in back at home — and under close watch — Dixon granted Duchess outdoor privileges on Saturday. This time, the cat came back the very same day.
