Cat found months after tornado hits trailer

Smoky was last seen June 7, before a tornado destroyed Wanda Ploeger’s mobile home in rural Riverview, scattering her belongings.

Ploeger was at work that evening and couldn’t find her kitty when she returned.

Ploeger, who has been staying with her ex-husband, said she knew Smoky was out there somewhere. She’d go out late at night to look for Smoky because that’s when he liked to go out, she said.

‘I kept telling my sister I never got a feeling about him,’ she said. ‘With other animals I’d always get a feeling. … I always thought he’d come back.’

And he did.

While driving about 2-1’2 miles from where her trailer used to be on Sept. 15, Ploeger saw a white streak and asked the driver to stop the truck along the highway.

The cat had gone over the hill so she crouched on the hill and called until it came to her.

Smoky dropped about three pounds and is now seven pounds. He also is taking antibiotics for an abscess, which he might have suffered while fighting, Ploeger said.

Ploeger said she plans to buy another mobile home and put it in the same place.

‘It wouldn’t be the same without him here,’ she said.

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IRWIN, Pennsylvania (AP) ‘ Melissa Hensler got a ‘Most Unusual Pet’ prize from her township two years ago for her pet rooster ‘ but now the same township says the bird is a farm animal in a residential area and it’s got to go.

The parents of the 13-year-old girl say they may file a lawsuit against the zoning decision by North Huntingdon Township officials. Melissa has raised the rooster, named Sundae, and eight other chickens for six years. But in July, say parents Barb and Don Hensler, a neighbor complained that they were raising chickens, and the township’s attitude changed.

The prize that Sundae won two years ago ‘is no substitute for township law,’ code enforcement officer David Stitt said. ‘Chickens are farm animals. You can call them pets if you like, but they are still fowl,’ Stitt said.

A township board rejected the Henslers’ request for a zoning exception, leading to their consideration of court action. ‘I’ve already spent $250 for the first appeal. These chickens are not worth that much ‘ maybe $1.75 or $2 ‘ if you sold them,’ Don Hensler said. ‘We were just asking the township to allow us to keep our pets until they pass on.’