SWEDEN – The owner of a Swedish cat who had gone missing back in 2008 stated that he “laughed and cried” after learning his beloved pet had been handed into a local animal shelter.
Earlier this week, Skellefteå resident Jack Norheim, 26, said to a public broadcaster SVT he had “always wondered” what had happened when cat Ernest failed to return home one day.
Mr. Norheim, who was then a teenager, eventually moved to Norway and had children, before returning to Skellefteå in 2016.
Just last week he received an unexpected call from the town shelter, notifying him a microchip scan ended up revealing a homeless cat recently handed into the shelter belonged to him.
“I laughed and cried at the same time when they called,” Mr. Norheim admitted to SVT.
“Everything was upside down and I was completely sure they had dialed the wrong number – it obviously sounded totally impossible that Ernst would have returned after nine years.”
Upon turning up at the shelter to retrieve his long-lost pet, Mr. Norheim learned that the cat had been living with an elderly couple just outside Skellefteå the entire time.
It was only at their passing that the cat had turned in and identified as Ernest.
Mr. Norheim confessed that he was a “little bit nervous at first” at the idea of finally being reunited with the cat, due to the amount of time that had since passed.
“But as soon as I saw him I was sure, he looked exactly the same as (he did) nine years ago,” he stated.
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