Brooklyn's Most Famous Missing Cat Returns Home After 6 Weeks on the Road

Photo via Jim Greene/Facebook

In the past six weeks, a cat named Smoke from Park Slope, Brooklyn, rose to fame as perhaps the most looked-for cat in a borough known for its vigilant missing-pet community.

Smoke, a Russian blue with soft gray fur and big green eyes, went missing on July 27 from Park Slope resident Jim Greene’s backyard on Sackett Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

Ever since, under nearly every photo of a found gray cat posted to the Lost and Found Pets in Brooklyn Facebook page, members of the community wondered, hoped, stretched: Could this one be Smoke?

Finally, on Sept. 8 — six weeks and 1,700 ”lost” posters later — a pilates instructor named Teri Steele, who feeds strays at the corner of Coffey and Van Brunt streets in Red Hook, noticed a new gray cat among her regulars.

According to DNAinfo, Steele “texted a photo of the cat to her daughter, who goes to school in Park Slope and recognized Smoke from the posters.”

Greene told Park Slope Stoop: “Putting up posters and not giving up is the only way I found him. I had so many people helping and telling me, ‘Don’t give up.’”

Smoke’s owner took to Facebook to share photos of his companion on Sunday — thoroughly exhausted from a life on the road, and a good bit skinnier than he’d been in domesticity, but happy to be home.

“My man!” Greene wrote. ”Headed to vet tomorrow. Smoke getting some rest. God I could not be more happy. Love this guy!!”

Patrick Callahan, a friend of Greene’s, shared on Facebook that as he was taking down “lost” flyers around 4th Avenue (”never been happier to do it”), someone stopped him to ask if Smoke was his cat.

”I said no, it’s my buddy’s,” Callahan wrote. ”Before I could say anything else this guy says ’I’m so glad they found Smoke. I was heartbroken.’”