WORLD TRAVELING CAT LOST IN ELLSWORTH

PARENTS WHO WORK ON THE ISLAND ARE FRANTICALLY SEARCHING FOR BELOVED FELINE

Aug 27, 2023

ELLSWORTH AND BAR HARBOR—If you’re in Ellsworth and see some dirty socks hanging from trees, don’t take them down. Those socks belong to MDI Biological Laboratory scientist Travis Carney. And they’re there because Carrie and Travis Carney want their cat back.

The theory is that the cat will smell Travis’ socks and come home.

According to The Scientific Monthly, a cat’s sense of smell allows it to find home from up to 4 miles away.

The threesome live in Ellsworth though Carrie works for Maine State Kayak and Travis is a senior scientist at the MDI Biological Laboratory. Brisco, the cat? He’s always been an adventurer. The couple, which have the adventure blog Two Small Potatoes have trekked around the world with Brisco.

Now, however, Brisco has ventured off alone, and the Carneys want him back.

“He went missing on the evening of August 15. He's always been an indoor/outdoor cat, but now that he's a senior-ish kitty, he spends most of his days sleeping indoors or hanging out with us on the front porch. He likes to go out to go potty, so we usually let him out each day or night for an hour or two. He always comes right back. This time he wasn't back by morning, so I had a bad feeling. He's ALWAYS within the sound of our voices. Anytime he's outside, we can step out on our porch and snap or call him and he comes running immediately,” Carrie said.

Brisco is both an adventurer and a homebody. Leash trained, he prefers his freedom. There is no magical central database for how many pets go missing each year, but the guess is that it’s somewhere around 10 million.

“We've taken him on outdoor excursions his whole life: kayaking and camping in Oregon, hiking in Germany, traipsing through the airport on leash like he owned the place when we moved back to the US last year, and road tripping 3300 miles with us and our dog Ratatouille the rat terrier when we moved to Maine last January. He's more like a dog than a cat and he's super friendly, but he's very much OUR cat. He's curious and would definitely get in a car if the door were left open, but he'd NEVER let anyone else pick him up. He doesn't even like it when we do. He's his own cat. He comes to us on his terms. It's unlikely he strayed far from home unless something bad happened. We're really worried someone stole him because he's beautiful, but he's not a purebred and he's neutered,” Carrie said.

Brisco was a gift from Carrie’s mom in 2011.

“She was trying to ‘replace’ my childhood cat I'd lost to cancer. He was a mutt cat she found as a kitten on Craigslist for $50. Turns out, Brisco is nothing like my old kitty, but he absolutely wormed his way into our lives,” Carrie said. “Honestly, he's a tough kitty—a bit of a pill. He can get cranky quickly, especially if you try to force him to do something he doesn't want to do. And if he's locked inside, he gets destructive quickly. He gets mad, hisses and paces, will try everything to dart out, and will literally stand on his hind legs and scratch the walls. But when he can just be himself and have free reign of the place, he's crazy affectionate, has a huge purr, loves head butts, and has a foot fetish. He loves sleeping with his paws in my flip flops or on our shoes. He's always wherever we are, sleeping next to our feet at night and always in the same room. We definitely feel his absence. It's the first time in the 23 years my husband and I have lived together that we haven't had a cat in the house.”

And they miss him. And they want him to come home.

According to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, microchipping increases the recovery rate of a pet, with 38% of cats reuniting with their humans and 52% for dogs.

According to PetKeen, which curated other sources, “about 33% of lost cats are found within a week” and “75% of lost cats are found within one-third of a mile from where they escaped.”

That’s because most animals create defined territories and boundaries rather than just living the nomadic life.

The ASPCA writes, “Approximately 6.3 million companion animals enter U.S. animal shelters nationwide every year. Of those, approximately 3.1 million are dogs and 3.2 million are cats.”

Brisco has both a US and European microchip. The Carneys’ contact information is updated with the microchip company, and they’ve created a lost pet alert with them. They’ve printed out flyers and hung them all around their neighborhood and with the local businesses up and down Highway 1A near them. They've gone door to door and talked to all of their neighbors in their housing complex.

“Many of them know him because he's friendly and makes the rounds to say hi to them. Several of them helped my husband search the woods around our house. We didn't find so much as a strand of his hair. He's afraid of the woods and we've never seen him venture further than 20 feet into them on any side of our complex. We've shared flyers across social media on our accounts, plus Bar Harbor Barter & Swap, Maine Lost Cat Recovery, Maine Lost & Found Pets Group, Pawboost, etc.,” Carrie said.

But that’s not all.

“We hung some of my husband's dirtiest socks throughout the woods around our place.” They haven’t yet filed a reward because they’ve already had people contact them on Facebook trying to scam them.

If a pet is neutered, they are more likely to be found again. If they are wearing a tag or an ID of some sort they are also more likely to be found again. That’s exactly what the Carneys want: Brisco to be found again.