Cat gone 7 years makes cross-country trek to reunite with owners

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A cat in California that went missing seven years ago found her owners – thanks to a microchip and a very determined man.

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Joe and Leanna Drnec, of Knoxville, Tenn., adopted Ebi in 2015 when they lived in California. They lost their beloved cat before moving to Tennessee.

“We really hoped and prayed that she found a good home and that’s kind of what we thought in the back of our minds, she must have found a good home,” Joe told WATE. “I think that’s what people do just to kind of cope with it.”

Fast-forward seven years when Joe received a shocking phone call from an animal shelter in Jurupa Valley, Calif., informing him that Ebi had been found – not far from where she first disappeared in 2015.

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“She was primarily an indoor cat,” Drbec said, according to a Facebook post by Riverdale County Animal Services.

“But she just went crazy at the door, always wanting to go outside. We allowed it, but my wife always supervised her. She eventually was an indoor-outdoor cat. But one day she did not come back.”

John Welsh, chief of animal services in Riverside County, said somebody brought Ebi to the shelter in January as a stray and a quick scan of the eight-year-old domestic short hair’s microchip led them to the Drnecs.

Welsh travelled with Ebi to Knoxville, which included stopovers in Phoenix and Nashville, on his own dime because taxpayer money can’t be used on a personal pet.