Socks Comes Home: Levittown Family Celebrates Lost Cat's Return

LEVITTOWN, NY. — A Levittown family’s feline odyssey came to a close this week as Socks, the beloved backyard cat of the Ruiz family, returned home Saturday morning. It was the first time the family had seen Socks since January, when the feral house cat went missing after the first of two major snowstorms that would hit Long Island this winter.

When asked about how Socks’ return took place, Jamie Ruiz, who previously called for help across social media to find the tuxedo cat, said it was unceremonious. While Socks was here one day and gone the next in January, the inverse was true when she came home in March.

“It was rather spontaneous. I got a message from my mom on Saturday that she showed up for breakfast, unannounced, and ready to get back to her regular routine,” Ruiz told Patch this week. “A neighbor had put a word out with our neighbors, and a neighbor of mine across the street had sent me a picture of Socks in her backyard. And just a few minutes later, she appeared in my parents' backyard, ready to get back to her regular routine.”

For Ruiz and her parents, who first started caring for Socks and a litter of her kittens when Jamie lived with her parents in 2022, the return of their pet is both a comfort after weeks of uncertainty and a reminder of the caring community that they’re able to call home.

“It’s such a relief to finally get some closure and have her back, and she's in good health,” Ruiz said. “I'm so grateful for all the people on Facebook, and the various Facebook groups, ‘For Lost Pets,’ and ‘Long Island Feral Cats,’ everyone was sharing the message and really putting the word out there, and it just goes to show how many nice people there still are in our community.”

Previously, Ruiz had told Patch that her family was planning to domesticate Socks on her return home. The wild mother of three had already been brought into the family, with Ruiz saying her parents looked forward to feeding Socks every day and building her her own miniature Levitt house. Now, the plan is to bring her into the home.

“That's definitely still part of the plan. Because she's a feral cat, she’ll need some coaxing, but we plan with the nicer weather, to spend some time outside with her and kind of get her used to being a house cat,” Ruiz said. “She's a lady that does what she wants, so it's going to be a heavy lift, but that is the ultimate goal so hopefully, if we ever have extreme weather, we don't have to go through this again.”

Part of the process of bringing Socks inside, Ruiz said, would involve getting her into a cycle of veterinary care and annual checkups. Right now, that might be difficult; Jamie said Socks isn’t used to human touch because she was born in the wild, and would need to get accustomed to people before she could become a full-time house cat.

“Once we get over those hurdles, it'll be business as usual for a house cat,” Ruiz added.

That business, Ruiz said, would also include a microchip, to prevent Socks from getting lost like she did during January’s blizzard. When asked if her parents hope to move Socks inside full-time or hope to keep her as an indoor-outdoor cat, Ruiz said she expects the latter. She added, however, that the feral cat might change her tone once she sees how nice it is inside.

“It's probably indoor-outdoor, unless she decides once she’s inside that she never wants to go out again, which is also possible. And, I’m sure, being the only pet, that my parents are going to spoil her to death. So all is within the realm of possibility.”