Leo was in the Fort Mitchell, Ky. home of Alex Johnston and Paul Finn more than 30 miles away.
“We’ve been loving a sweet boy for little over a week now and I think you might be his mom!” began Johnston message. “If it’s him, know that he’s been very loved and spoiled rotten.”
The message from Johnston came after McClain had put up laminated missing cat posters and after unsuccessful searches by friends, family, neighbors, strangers and a professional search firm.
“She (Alex) reached out to me at midnight Christmas night. My 8-year-old daughter Addy cried all Christmas day that Santa didn’t bring her cat back. She had asked Santa for her cat to come back,’’ McClain said.
“We’re big on our faith. We had kept praying and I told the kids to have faith, God would work it out. But we had about given up hope.”
Alex Finn said she knew the cat the family had been caring for must have a family who was missing it. Every day she had been combing Facebook groups trying to find its owner, with no luck.
On Christmas day she was determined to find the cat’s owner, so she spent hours combing Facebook groups looking for a post about a missing cat that matched the description of the cat her family was caring for.
“I knew somebody was missing this cat. His behavior was so loving. He was a cat who acted like a dog. He was declawed. Everybody loved this cat. He was cuddled up next to me,’’ Finn said.
“On Christmas day it was really bothering me. This cat let my 3-year-old carry him around like he was a stuffed animal – he tolerated it. I said ‘I know this cat has kids.’ It was so heavy on my heart.”
So she spent two hours combing through missing cat posts until she found a listing about a cat with unique markings that matched those of the cat her family was caring for.
“Once that happened…I reached out to her (McClain), wrote a long message. I woke up on Dec. 26 and had all these messages from her.”
The two women and their children met in a downtown Cincinnati parking lot to verify it was the right cat and then return Leo.
That’s when both families unraveled the mystery of how Leo ended up in with the Johnston-Finn home.
After getting out of the family’s garage unbeknownst to the McClains as they were leaving for work and school, Leo made his way to the Jeff Wyler Honda dealership on Colerain Avenue – a distance of six miles – where Paul Finn was a salesman.
After two days of the cat – then dirty and emaciated – trying to get inside the dealership or sleeping under cars, Paul Finn took it home to Fort Mitchell. The family already had two cats, a dog, and a button quail.
Everyday Johnston combed Facebook postings trying to find out who Leo belonged to as he was becoming a part of their family – loved by her 3- and 6-year-old sons, Rory and Knox.
“My kids were heartbroken – absolutely devastated – when we thought we found the owners,” Johnston said.
“But we kept reminding them if it were their cat would they want somebody to keep it. Doing the right thing even when you know doing the wrong thing has no consequences is the right thing to do.”
The two moms didn’t tell their children in advance that Leo might be returning to him home when they met in the parking lot of the Frisch’s near the Cincinnati Museum Center.
“I felt sad when I lost him,” Addy said. “I felt happy and excited when I found him. I didn’t give up hope because Jesus would find him.”
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