“I accidentally stole a cat.”
In August, Dylan LaPort and Jasmine Johnson got the dreaded message every pet sitter fears: one of the four cats in their care had been spotted outside.
“We thought, ‘No way! There’s no way this cat got out,’” LaPort told The Dodo. “We were extremely cautious.”
They were just two days into a month-long stay at a friend’s house in upstate New York when the black, long-haired cat with yellow eyes, Nemo, went missing. LaPort and Johnson searched the house thoroughly but found no trace of him.
“We started thinking, ‘He must have slipped out somehow,’” LaPort said.
Enlisting the help of neighbors and friends, they began a neighborhood search. After about two hours, LaPort spotted a cat resembling Nemo several doors down. A neighbor caught the fluffy feline and handed him over.
Relieved, LaPort sent a photo to Nemo’s owner, who confirmed it was indeed him. Problem solved—or so they thought.
Over the next week, Nemo acted unusually affectionate. Normally shy and wary of touch, he now seemed eager to cuddle.
Then, one night around 2 a.m., Johnson went for a glass of water and froze. Five cats were sitting in the room, two of them nearly identical with black fur and yellow eyes. She grabbed her phone and started filming.
It soon clicked: one of the black cats was not Nemo. Somehow, they had accidentally taken someone else’s cat.
LaPort shared the video on Facebook with the caption: “The moment we realized we stole someone’s cat.” It went viral locally, and soon Kelly Aleschus—the neighbor who had handed over the black cat—reached out.
Her 13-year-old indoor cat, Sidney, had been missing all week. Aleschus had no reason to think he would wander far, having tried to go outside only occasionally.
“I looked at the video and thought, ‘Sidney’s alive!’” Aleschus told The Dodo. “I can’t believe I actually handed over my own cat. The worst part is, once I saw him, I thought, ‘Wow… he really does look like Nemo.’”
LaPort and Johnson were left wondering how the mix-up happened. They suspect they spent most of the week with Sidney, who even hopped into bed with them nightly. “He’s got quite the personality,” Aleschus said. “He acts like a kitten.”
Meanwhile, Nemo had a reputation for hiding in impossible spots. “He usually only comes out when I’m alone,” said his owner, Rachael Jones. “Once he hid inside the bed frame… I could feel something moving and eventually he emerged.”
Amazingly, all five cats coexisted peacefully for a week without LaPort or Johnson witnessing any fights. Sidney fit right in.
Since Sidney returned home and the pet-sitting assignment ended, everyone is back where they belong—and life is normal again. Almost normal, that is. Nemo recently gave Jones another scare when he disappeared for dinner and didn’t greet her after work, only to be found relaxing on the upstairs porch at 5:30 a.m.
“I already checked there!” Jones said. “What is happening?”