Missing For Weeks, Friendly Feline Oreo Is Home After Adventure

MADISON, CT — If this story was a children’s book, it might be called ‘Oreo’s Big Adventure.’

Oreo is a friendly cat, one who greets visitors to Legendary Race Hill Farm, a private hunter-jumper horse farm. Madison Animal Control officer Liz Amendola noted that the times she’s visited the farm, Oreo has greeted her “like a dog does; she comes right up to you to say, ‘hello.’”

Oreo has the run of the farm, which is co-owned and operated by Diana King, the longtime horsewoman and trainer. The year-and-a-half-old cat is a beloved farm family member.

On Nov. 1, King hosted a benefit for a friend Danielle Stites, of the three-generation DeCarli Farm in Ellington, which saw its barn roof destroyed in tropical storm Isaias last August. Read more about the GoFundMe fundraising campaign here.

Many friends, equestrian students, farmers and farm owners, came to King's Legendary Race Hill Farm for the Sunday afternoon benefit, most with trucks or horse trailers. The day was a success.

But where was Oreo? After searching and searching, King took to Facebook to post that Oreo had gone missing.

King put up 'missing cat' posters, posted on social media and then reached out to Amendola.

“I’d been to the farm a couple of times before, for a sick raccoon and once a deer who was tangled up in the woods there," Amendola told Patch. "Oreo is like a dog-cat, she comes up to you and she has a funny personality. They adore her. She’s quite the character at the farm."

Meanwhile, Amendola’s daughter, who lives just down the road from the farm, spotted a cat on her Ring doorbell camera. Amendola caught that cat but it wasn't Oreo — though it did belong to another neighbor and had been missing for three months, so that has a happy ending, too.

But back to Oreo the "very special barn kitty."

Weeks after Oreo went missing, King heard from a student of hers who now lives in South Carolina.

“So Tuesday night, she called me. We’re mutual friends with Ellen Andrusko,” King said. “She told me to check Ellen’s Facebook post.”

When she did, she saw a photo of a found cat that bore a striking resemblance to her missing black and white kitty. Had she found Oreo?

“The timing was right," she said. Her friend Liz, who had come to the benefit, owns a farm in Colchester, around a mile and half from Ellen’s. King called Ellen.

"I was shaking as I listened to Ellen describe her: ‘Friendly, doesn’t like wet food, just dry.’ I knew. That’s my Oreo.”

It’s believed that Oreo invited herself into a horse trailer back on Nov. 1 and took a very long ride from Madison to Colchester, jumped out and then began searching for her way back home going “door-to-door” and, being the friendly feline she is, met folks along the way who posted photos of her to Facebook.

King said that among those good people was a man so inspired by Oreo that he decided to adopt a cat.

“Could it be that something good is happening in 2020,” she laughed. “We’ve all been through a lot, and we all have our stories so any good thing that happens,” we should celebrate, she said.

For her part, Madison's animal control officer was thrilled.

"I’m so excited about it," Amendola said. "This is such a big deal. Just a great ending."

And how’s Oreo doing have traveled, and lost, 40 miles from home?

“She’s actually a little bit disoriented still, but she was definitely happy to see us," King said about her beloved cat. "When we picked her up, she was looking around probably wondering, ‘Where am I now?’ I think her internal GPS needs a little recalibration.”

And that's the story of Oreo's Big Adventure.