Our beloved campus cat, Dale’s, disappearance caused quite the stir at Grier–even though Kirby seemed more than happy to fill his typical role on campus while he was gone. Unfortunately for Kirby–but happily for the campus–Dale was found in Tyrone on the Tuesday night before Friendsgiving and was brought back to campus safe and sound.
It appears that in late October, Dale chose to catch a ride to the other side of Tyrone where he ended up by the Village Pantry. “This is the part that we don’t know what happened,” said riding program instructor, Lauren Michaels, after being asked how Dale got off campus. Michaels reported that we do know that he followed some kids home from the playground in Tyrone, where their mother took him in. However, as an outside cat, Dale did not like the tightness of living indoors. “Since he doesn’t like being cooped up,” Michaels said, “he’d go back outside and hit up another house.”
A nice older man ended up with Dale for a short time during Dale’s journey and brought him into a Humane Society. There, they checked for a microchip but said it was unregistered. The man took Dale to another shelter where they found that the microchip was in fact registered, at which point he was transferred to a cat rescue until they could contact his owners.
A woman at the cat rescue made posts on social media to alert the community about Dale’s appearance, but Grier didn’t locate him until Frannie, the barn manager, received messages from the microchip company informing her that Dale had been found. On November 26th, Dale was picked up from the cat rescue and brought home to Grier.
Throughout November, there were some false, hopeful spotting’s of Dale, but they were mostly students seeing Baby Cat or Brennan, Dale’s biological brother. Everyone was searching for him, thinking he would be around campus somewhere. Some had even sadly concluded that he might have died. However, Dale proved everyone wrong. At the end of the day, he was only trying to expand his following and horizons.
While Dale was running around Tyrone, Kirby assumed some of Dale’s roles and gained popularity at Grier. Since Dale’s return, there have been sightings of Kirby sulking, mourning his move down the Grier Cat popularity ranking. Kirby has been found on a bench outside of the office with his face planted in a horse’s cooler, possibly rethinking his life’s choices.
Since his return, Dale has been acting like a movie star but continues to try to leave campus by jumping in cars. Dale’s only response to questions about his actions is an offhand “meow.”
