Photo: Margaret Kudzma
On August 5, 2015, Margaret Kudzma was giving medicine to a sick cat she was fostering when she heard a noise in her bedroom. The cat rescuer went to investigate and found an upstairs window in her condo was open. The screen had fallen out. After inspecting her home, Kudzma sadly discovered that her beloved, 1-year-old cat, Mini Max, was missing.
“I went into panic mode,” Kudzma, 57, tells PEOPLE.
“He’s such a gentle and loving cat,” says Kudzma of Mini Max. “I loved him so much.”
Determined to find him, Kudzma put up missing cat flyers in her neighborhood, posted online, went door-to-door searching neighbors' backyards, set up night-vision cameras, and even worked with a pet detective who used a search dog to find lost animals.
“He vanished,” she says. “He was nowhere to be found … But I never gave up hope.”
While searching for her own missing cat, Kudzma rescued hundreds of other cats through her non-profit,The Rescue Business.
Margaret Kudzma
“I couldn’t believe it,” Kudzma says. Years after disappearing from home, Mini Max showed up starving at a house in the town of Revere, close to Kudzma’s condo in Peabody. The homeowners fed the cat and took him to the vet, who contacted Kudzma. She and her cat were reunited the next day — almost six years after Mini Max went missing.
“I felt so relieved and so happy,” she says. “I’m so happy he’s home.”
Now, Mini Max jumps on her lap every chance he can.
“It’s miraculous,” she says of their reunion. “It’s like a dream come true. I want to make sure he’s happy, and the rest of his life is good.”
source: people.com
