I must confess I’m more a dog person than one of those cat types. 

It’s something most people readily understand. Dogs are unselfish creatures that simply ooze adoration every time it sees you. Every time, all the time. Or to put it another way, a dog is a nicer person that the average person. 

Cats are a different breed. They are fastidious creatures that allow us the pleasure of their company, we don’t own them. And they’re calculating as all hell, always giving you that measured, what’s-in-it-for-me look.

In fact, they can sit and regard you silently for ages, which can creep you out until you realise it’s wondering when Moron’s going to open the door so it can go out! 

Cats are, apparently, the only mammals that cannot taste sweetness which is why they walk around with a perpetually superior attitude that vacillates between condescension and hauteur. Man has diagnosed it as a disagreeable expression which is how the term sourpuss evolved. 

You might say I’m a tad prejudiced against the species. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to read about a cat that traversed almost the length of the United States – from Wyoming to California – and lived to tell the tail.

When Benny and Susanne Anguiano planned a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park with their two cats, little did they know that catastrophe lurked around the corner.  

The term could also be applied to one of their cats. It isn’t clear if Islamic law mandates a public flogging for cat owners who name a cat Rayne Beau – pronounced “Rainbow” – but I guess there’s no rest for the hoity-toity. 

The couple plus their two cats arrived at Yellowstone’s Fishing Bridge RV Park on June 4. It was the first trip to the forest for the two cats. On hindsight, this might have been a mistake and a pre-trip briefing to the felines might have been in order. 

It wasn’t done and, sure enough, Murphy’s Law prevailed. Soon after they arrived, Rayne Beau got startled and ran, panic-stricken, into the nearby trees.

The couple looked for him for four days, even laying out his favourite treats and toys. When they finally had to drive back to Salinas, California, on June 8, Susanne Anguiano said she was “crushed” but nevertheless, had this feline.  

“We were entering the Nevada desert and all of a sudden I see a double rainbow. And I took a picture of it and I thought, that’s a sign. That’s a sign for our rainbow that he’s going to be okay,” she said. 

The reader  would do well to question Ms Anguiano’s smoking habits at this point, but she was, apparently, dope-free and dead serious. 

In August, the Anguianos received amazing news. A  microchip company messaged them that their cat was at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville, California. That’s almost  900 miles (1,448 kilometers) from Yellowstone and only 200 miles (322 kilometers) away from Salinas.

A woman saw Rayne Beau wandering the streets of the northern California city fed him and gave him water until she took him to the local SPCA.

The next day, the Anguianos picked up the cat, 

“I believe truly that he made that trek mostly on his own. His paws were really beat up. Lost 40% of his body weight, had really low protein levels because of inadequate nutrition. So he was not cared for,” Susanne Anguiano said. 

For all that, the cat only lost 6 pounds.

The cat couldn’t understand the fuss. All it wanted to do was to sleep after changing its name. His new moniker is Beau Legged for obvious reasons. 

Now isn’t that a pawsome story? 

ENDS