Picture this: You’ve got a fluffy feline friend, your sidekick for a solid 12 years, and suddenly, he pulls a vanishing act. That’s exactly the rollercoaster Iris Samaniego found herself on with Diego, her flame-point Siamese cat.
Diego had been the furry love of Iris’s life for over a decade until one day, he saw an opportunity and ninja-ed his way out through an open garage door. Cue the heartache. Iris spent nearly two years tirelessly searching for her furball, refusing to give up hope.
“I posted signs everywhere for over a year,” Iris, a vet tech, shared. And then, in a twist of fate, during a break at work, she decided to check the Animal Friends of the Valley website. Lo and behold, a familiar face – Diego’s face – stared back at her.
“I saw his picture and left work as fast as I could,” Iris recounted. The moment she and her sister Crystal laid eyes on the cat at the shelter, there was no doubt. It was Diego.
“The moment I saw him I felt indescribable joy, I felt peace and overwhelmed because I knew he wasn’t dead. My intuition always told me he was alive,” Iris shared, holding back tears.
Even when well-meaning friends and family advised her to move on, Iris clung to hope and kept searching. And you know what? It paid off.
“Never give up on finding your animals. This is the best Christmas present she could have received,” Crystal, Iris’s sister, chimed in.
Diego, after his stint at the shelter, was a bit stressed, but the minute he stepped back into his loving home, he bounced right back to his old, charming self. After almost two years of longing, Iris and her family got the ultimate Christmas miracle – a reunited family with their 13-year-old furry friend.
“I can’t tell you how much joy this has brought our family,” Iris beamed. Talk about a purr-fect ending to a heartwarming tale of a cat’s great adventure and a pet owner’s unyielding love.
