It can happen to any one of us. We go about our daily routines on auto-pilot, finishing tasks and errands without a second thought. And then it happens. Our beloved pet notices the door is open just enough to bolt past you and into the fresh air, ready to play without a care in the world. The streets don’t hold the same terror for our naïve fur kids as they do for us. But in the surprising chaos, our loved ones disappear and our lives are forever changed.
That’s what happened when 3-year-old tabby boy, Drifter, ran past his family on July 18th, 2024. The excited cat went missing in Duluth, Minnesota and the family was devastated. They searched everywhere, hanging posters all across the city and even adding him to the online pet finder site PawBoost. It’s possible they believed that construction in the area would have scared him from the noise, not knowing where he could have ended up.
But the construction in the neighborhood streets became Drifters downfall.
For seven weeks the family held out hope he would return. However, the sadness was overwhelming. Drifters family, humans Clifton, Ashley and 12-year-old April did everything they could to stay positive.
Drifter went missing on July 18th, right after we all got back home from the honeymoon. The door to the house opened that morning, and he shot up the hill and disappeared[.] We had posted his likeness on all of the missing pet sites and plastered posters everywhere we could in the neighborhood.
It was all the construction though that Ashley couldn’t get off her mind. Was poor Drifter involved in an accident with the equipment? Yes, Northern Minnesota can be a dangerous place for animals outside with all the wildlife to contend with. But the normally quiet streets were now bustling with workers and torn up pavement too.
The day he went missing, the road crew completed a huge step in the construction process, which included sealing up the sewers and covering a big hole into that tunnel system up with a big plate and then tons of massive rocks. A few times, Ashley had postulated the idea that maybe he had been around that area and had been crushed by the equipment, but we had no idea where he could have gone.
Digging under a metal cover where cat meows could be heard
Tips began coming in about people seeing Drifter on the streets.
The highs and lows of experiencing a missing pet are absolutely heart wrenching. And this poor family had quite the unique experience during Drifters missing time.
We had received numerous sightings and reports of various false flag Drifters, including one incident where I had even brought an imposter Drifter home from Duluth’s Animal Control because I was stressed out about the tragedy of passing on a possible Drifter that my confirmation bias took control of my emotions in the moment, and I made a judgment call “to believe” until Ashley set me straight and returned this HiFi facsimile to the city. So much time had passed that we had made plans to hold a memorial service, to help create some closure for all of us.
No one wanted to accept that Drifter was gone.
And that’s when something absolutely AMAZING happened.
One evening after going out for some gelato, the family returned home to settle in for the night. April quickly went to check on something with the other neighborhood kids outside. It was then she returned home, excitedly claiming the children had heard a cat meowing from underground! Clifton and Ashley rushed outside to hear for themselves, always holding out hope Drifter would be the cat in question. Clifton later shared the ‘tale’ from his perspective on social media.
With our ongoing road construction, the sewer and drainage system under our street has been temporarily blocked off. From beneath all of this, we did indeed hear the dramatic meowing of a distressed cat.
We grabbed a shovel and started to dig. There was a several hundred pound metal form that had been covered in dirt, sitting on top of the hole that was covered by a heavy duty landscaping fabric mat. Once we were able to remove some of the dirt, and prop that metal form with a nearby stone, the clawed paw of a tabby cat shot out of a small hole in the mat, reaching from inside the sewer, out into the open air. I was able to dig carefully and then make the opening of the hole a little bigger with my hands. Suddenly, the paws and the face of this tabby cat appeared in the hole, and we started to realize this apparition from our neighborhood’s Hades might be… Drifter?
Drifter emerges from the depths of the underground.
With fate guiding his hands, Clifton dug carefully. The onlookers surely waiting with baited breath. And then the streets gave up their secret.
As the sun set last night, I cut the hole a bit wider, and two paws and a head emerged, as this cat, which was almost certainly Drifter, complete with collar and tags, began hoisting himself out of the hole, while I reached down and pulled him out of tear in the fabric, inadvertently lifting him into the air in the fashion of that iconic opening scene to the Lion King.
IT WAS DRIFTER!!
I cannot even imagine the feelings of discovering your missing cat like this! Not to mention, poor Drifter who had been gone for almost 2 MONTHS! Stuck underground, scavenging for food and water. But he made it; surviving under the very streets that bustled with humans above searching for him.
April was in tears with joy and shock, Ashley and I were aghast that somehow, after all of this time, Drifter was back, in the truly most inexplicable manner of returning home. Earlier that day, April had been out behind the house, calling for him, just like she had dutifully done every few days while he was missing. It is entirely possible that her beckoning echoed through the sewer tunnels, and this time, he found his way to a point of egress from which we could hear his urgent meows, where we could extradite him to safety.
Even though he was clean and seemingly himself, it was immediately clear that his body was extremely malnourished. We took him to the ER vet and they weighed him in at 6.5 lbs. When he disappeared in July, he was probably close to 15 lbs, and not that chunky or too overweight, just strong and formidable.
Welcome home buddy.
Drifters dad, Clifton, shared the good news about the rescue online and of course it was picked up by the local news stations. The love and adoration that their family has for Drifter warms the heart. We’re so extremely glad that Drifter was found and is back home safe off the streets.
He is otherwise completely himself. Snuggly, vibrant, and extremely obsessed with food. Last night, he elected to hop into bed with April for a few hours and snuggle with her as she fell asleep. He then kept Ashley and I up all night with his extremely aggressive purring and excitement about being home, above ground, and in good standing once again.
If we had received a little less rain this summer, he would probably have died of dehydration. A little more, and he may have drowned in the sewers of Duluth. Another week, I don’t know if he would have made it. The vet said that cats need to eat every three days before they begin to shut down, so I cannot imagine what he scavenged to survive over the last months. How many terrible ends came to the rats and mice that chanced upon his hungry and unstoppable nature? How deep did he have to dig (inwards) in order to survive and finally emerge to his natural state of being a surface dweller again, to the celebration and joy of his family and neighborhood, which had all gathered around to witness his rebirth from the ground.
This cat is truly something else. He is a character cut straight out of some combination of Jack London and Charles Dickens. Willful and tenacious, scrappy and lucky as hell. He came to us in the deadliest of winter colds, and he has re-emerged from the street gutters again… to snuggle, to feast, and probably also to terrorize our other cat, Garnet, who is noticeably annoyed that he has once again joined our fold.
The lesson here is that one should keep their ear to the ground, keep hoping, and never underestimate the Underworld Lord, Seal Team Six, Raccoon Lazarus that is… Drifter.
Welcome home, bud.
You can watch the news report and rescue video taken by a neighbor in the post below.
