WAILUA — When Diki Bettencourt realized her cat, Gladys, was gone, she was heartbroken.
“It’s been raining since she’s been gone,” she said. “I envision her cold, hungry and scared. As a mom, I’m thinking worse case scenario.”
The eight-year-old blind, black and brown striped cat went missing from her Wailua Homesteads home on June 4.
“I check the Kauai Humane Society everyday, and they’re keeping an eye out for her,” she said. “I can’t imagine where she could be. She comes and goes in the house, but she never has gone too far from home.”
Bettencourt thinks something scared her, and she ran.
“She usually hangs out outside, and when my husband gets up in the morning to go to work, she’s always waiting for him. But this day, she wasn’t,” Bettencourt said.
When calling for her didn’t work, they started putting up posters.
The family has had Gladys since she was a baby.
“We had another cat, Gracie, and we thought Gracie needed a friend, but she was a little to rambunctious for
Bettencourt said Gladys knew exactly when it was dinner time.
“She would come in and eat at 4 p.m., that was dinner time, and she let us know,” she said.
While Bettencourt isn’t giving up hope that she and Gladys will be reunited, she knows Gladys will have a hard time finding her way back.
“You hear stories of cats coming home after two years because they have a homing device and can find their way home,” she said. “But since she can’t see, I don’t know how she’d get home if she took off.”
And, because her house is up for sale, she’s worried about moving without finding her.
“I’d hate to sell it, and have her come home,” she said.
Gladys went missing off Kuamoo Road, just before the country store.
If she’s found, call 652-7036.
