By Michael Bennett
Local Journalism Initiative
The Ridgetown Independent News
Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia.
One Ridgetown woman received all of her wishes – Christmas, birthday and one of three from a genie – when her beloved Virginia showed up at her door, three years after disappearing.
Trudy Calvert had long given up hope she would ever again see Virginia, her seven-year-old dilute calico cat, after she went missing from their Manitoba Street home in June of 2022.
“She was an inside cat, but she liked to lie in the sun,” Calvert said. “She’d come out with us and lie on the front porch, then she’d come in with us.”
But on that fateful night three years ago, Calvert’s husband Jim stepped onto the porch for a late smoke, and Virginia followed.
When he noticed Virginia didn’t follow him back in, he went back outside, but there was no sign of the cat.
The next morning, Trudy went door-to-door in the neighbourhood with a picture of Virginia, but no one had seen her.
She put up pictures in local stores and at the post office and posted on social media sites, asking people to keep an eye out for Virginia.
“She’s a very distinctive calico, mainly black with some tan and gray and white on her tummy, paws and nose, you can’t mistake her,” Calvert said.
She expanded her search area as she continued to look for Virginia daily and put updated posts on social media in August, still with no luck.
Calvert said she received numerous calls about possible sightings – and others about someone finding a dead cat on the road – but none were Virginia.
She also dreaded thinking that Virginia may have wandered outside of town, where coyotes are not uncommon.
After posting online again in January 2023, Calvert said she realized Virginia was “likely gone.”
Fast forward to a recent Saturday night. Calvert said she was heading to bed when she noticed her other two indoor cats – Oreo and Lucky – staring through the door window at something on the porch.
“I went to see and turned on the light – and it was Virginia,” she said.
Calvert said she quickly put the two cats in the bathroom and placed their Belgian Sheppard Yukon in his crate, then went back and opened the door for Virginia.
“She nonchalantly walked in, purred around my legs and then walked straight into the bedroom, hopped up on the bed and lay down,” Calvert recalled. “I thought, ‘she’s here!’”
Calvert let Yukon out of his box to see how he would react.
“They lived together, he went up and they were nose-to-nose, no problem,” she said. “If it wasn’t her, believe me, he wouldn’t have been calm walking up to her.”
“The cat who knew her (Oreo) was fine with her, the other one (Lucky) who didn’t know her, was not fine.”
Calvert took Virginia to the vet the first thing Monday morning, and she checked out fine, as she wasn’t emaciated but had a few tick bites, and her fur was a little rough.
“The vets said someone had to have fed her part of this time, either that or she’s one heck of a good mouser,” Calvert said. “I believe someone took her in, not knowing that I put all those posts out. There’s no other reason for how this cat came back three years later.”
Calvert said she’ll never know how an indoor cat like Virginia survived outside, especially under the harsh conditions of this past winter, which is why she believes someone had to have taken her in at some point.
“I’m thankful for whoever had her; they did a good job,” she said.
But…
“If they go looking for her, they’ll never find her because she’s never going out that door again,” Calvert said, with a laugh. “No more lying in the sun on the porch for her.”
