Have you Seen Dante?
Lost in Liberty TX area
$200 reward offered!
Anna Moorhead, a medical student at UTMB in Galveston, has been searching for her cat Dante since September 2005 when Hurricane Rita came through Texas. If you have seen this boy, please contact Anna ASAP at amoorhead@gmail.com and we hope you will share this page in an effort to help her locate her sweet friend! It is possible that he was taken in and adopted by someone and circulating his story and his picture could find him safe and sound...we pray that is what will happen.
Anna writes: In September 2005, during the evacuation from Hurricane Rita, my beloved cat Dante was lost. I was living overseas at the time, so he was living with my aunt and uncle in Clear Lake, TX. They were evacuating and made a rest stop in Liberty, TX when they lost both my cats while trying to feed them.
The cats had been cooped up in their cages for hours baking in the heat. They weren't able to get them back in the chaos, so they just left them there. I was devastated and immediately made a poster and emailed it to friends and family and once the roads were clear, a few people went there to look.
One of the cats was found, a neighbor near the church where they made the rest stop had been feeding her. She is now safe at home in Houston.
I have gone to Liberty myself about 10 times starting in Dec 2005 when I came home for Christmas that year, have run ads on the Liberty city website, as well as in 2 of the local papers, and have made fliers and posted them all over the town many times. I have had some calls over the months but have not found Dante.
I know its been a long time now, but I cannot stop hoping and praying and trying to find him. I love this cat with all my heart and wish that I could somehow find him. Because he was lost in an unfamiliar place, I don't know how he would have behaved. He was an indoor cat, was not declawed, is neutered, and is friendly and goofy but also shy and hides when he knows he's around people who don't like cats.
Since he had never been in Liberty before, I can't imagine what he would have done. The police there told me they had seen him, and there were some police staying in the church from out of town who said they would set traps to catch him, but I don't think it ever happened. The commotion of Hurricane Rita died down, the people all left Liberty, and Dante was never found.
I have contacted the pound there many times and they do not even keep records of their dead animals remains they collect. The police there know me and I hope they would contact me if an orange cat was found, but so far they have not. A friend of mine who went there immediately after saw him at the church but could not catch him.
it is possible that I have some old items/clothing/toys t hat smell like Dante that could possible be used to help find him. I just don't know where he could be. Do you think he would have stayed in Liberty, or headed back towards Clear Lake since that was where he had lived most recently, even though he had only lived there a few weeks before the storm and only as an indoor cat?
Previously he had lived in Chicago as an indoor cat for one year with my sister, and before that he lived in Austin for 4 years as an indoor only cat with me. I have attached some pictures of Dante, just in case someone turned him in to a shelter in the Friendswood area, or on the off chance that you may have seen him.
And yes, I am offering $200 to anyone who finds Dante
Please let me know if you think there is anything more that can be done at this point. People tell me to get over it, he was just a cat, but he was my buddy and I really miss him so much.
Thank you
Anna Moorhead
amoorhead@gmail.com
832-814-9661