SAN FRANCISCO — A gray cat who lived an extraordinary life of visits to the beach and trips to the lake went on his greatest adventure alone, traveling hundreds of miles from Wyoming to California.
But how the cat named Rayne Beau – pronounced “rainbow” – returned home two months after getting lost in Yellowstone National Park during a summer camping trip remains a mystery.
Benny and Susanne Anguiano and their two cats arrived at Yellowstone’s Fishing Bridge RV Park on June 4 for their first trip into the woods. But shortly after arriving, Rayne Beau got spooked and ran into the nearby trees.
The couple searched for him for four days, even leaving out his favorite treats and toys. When they finally had to drive back to Salinas, California, on June 8, Susanne Anguiano said she was devastated, but never lost hope that she would find him.
“We were driving into the Nevada desert and all of a sudden I saw a double rainbow. I took a picture of it and thought, ‘That’s a sign. That’s a sign for our rainbow that he’s doing well,'” she said.
In August, the Anguianos got exciting news when a microchip company sent them a message that their cat was at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville, California, nearly 900 miles (1,448 kilometers) from Yellowstone. He was only about 200 miles (322 kilometers) from his home in Salinas.
A woman who first spotted Rayne Beau wandering the streets of the Northern California city gave him food and water until she caught him on August 3 and took him to the local animal control center.
The next day, the Anguianos drove to Roseville and picked up their cat. She had lost 7 pounds.
“I really believe he made that journey largely on his own. His legs were really messed up. He had lost 40% of his body weight, was really low on protein because of inadequate nutrition. So he wasn’t being cared for,” said Susanne Anguiano.
The couple still don’t know how their cat ended up in Roseville, but they believe he was trying to get home. They’ve reached out to the media in hopes of filling in the blanks.
Benny Anguiano said that in addition to microchipping their cats, they have now fitted two of them with air tags and Rayne Beau with a GPS tracker.
The cats love traveling in the RV and looking out the large windows to see deer, squirrels and other wildlife. But the family isn’t ready to take their pets on the road again anytime soon, he said.
“It was a really bad feeling after we lost him,” Benny Anguiano said. “We’re going to have to practice camping at home and camp in the driveway to get him used to it.”
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Valdes reported from Seattle.