Toronto man finds cat, lost for 13 years, on the same day his own cat went missing

Mary Lynn Simon was at her desk at work when she got a very unexpected phone call.

"I could barely make sense of it," Simon told CTV News Toronto. "He said, 'Is Jinx missing?'"

Jinx, Simon's Abyssinian cat, had gone missing back in 2011.

"He was an indoor cat, and I had him since he was a kitten. And then when we moved, he would have been two years old, and he discovered the great outdoors."

Simon said Jinx had left home twice before, once getting into a stranger's car and going for a ride, the other when he was returned by a construction worker who had found the wandering cat and contacted Simon through the tags on his collar.

Over the past 13 years, Simon often wondered what had happened to Jinx, and whether or not he was even still alive.

"It's difficult," she said, "its sad."

And then, out of the blue last week, she found out that not only was Jinx alive and well, but that he had made it some 20 kilometres over the past 13 years. Simon lived near Dufferin Street and Rogers Road when the cat went missing, but he was found in Scarborough, near Victoria Park Avenue and Ellesmere Road.

"Did he have an owner? More than one owner?" Simon wondered. "Did he travel by foot? If only he could speak," she said with a laugh.

Jinx may not be able to speak, but the man who found him can. Louie Gjorgijevski was driving down Victoria Park last Tuesday when something caught his eye by the side of the road.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, that's a cat at a bus stop," Gjorgijevski told CTV News. "So I drove, I made a turn and I come back."

Gjorgijevski noticed that the cat didn't have any tags, and wasn't wearing a collar, so he scooped him up, put him in his car, and drove him directly to his own veterinarian's office.

"If he has a microchip we're happy," said Gjorgijevski. "And sure enough, he had a microchip!"

That's where the connection was made that Jinx had an owner. But when Gjorgijevski discovered that Jinx had been missing for more than a decade, he said, "I got goosebumps...12 years? Cat missing? Wow!"

But the discovery was bittersweet for Gjorgijevski. On the same day he found Jinx, he'd also lost his own cat. A formerly feral feline that he had adopted several months ago. after his cat of 19 years died in March. Gjorgijevski said he's put up posters around his neighbourhood, but is worried his neighbours will think his cat is a stray.

"That cat is not stray," he said. "That cat has an owner. I am the owner of that cat. The rightful thing [to do] is please bring that cat back."

As for Jinx, aside from some minor health issues, he seems to be in decent shape for an almost 16-year-old cat. Now back in his original home, it will be some time before he's introduced to the other cats that have been adopted since he left.

As for Simon, she says she is full of gratitude for Gjorgijevski, and she hopes someone will now do the same for him and his cat.