Pets are rescued throughout the city every day. Thankfully, most get returned to their families quickly and without incident. The network of pet locating resources is one of the best parts of social media. Before the internet, photocopied lost dog or lost cat posters – tacked onto grocery store bulletin boards or taped to hydro and streetlight poles in the neighborhood — were all we had. Nowadays a single post on a Facebook page can get thousands of views and quick responses.

Sometimes those responses aren’t really helpful, but they are signs that there are caring people getting the information out there.

Recently, Jackie (my wife) heard a loud mewling at 3 a.m. outside our house. As it was -15C outside, she had to investigate, and found a sweet little kitten trapped under the neighbour’s deck. When her attempts to contact the neighbour failed, she got out her tools and took apart part of the deck to get the kitten out, making me look bad by letting me sleep through the rescue effort (I wear noise-cancelling headphones to sleep).

She and Mary cuddled the frozen little guy, gave him some food, and set up a little safe space for him in the bathroom. I woke up in the morning to find that he had taken over the household, as kittens often do.

He’s a sweet little grey cat, whose picture we posted online, and we also notified Humane Society. The lovely people at Dakota Veterinary Hospital scanned him, but alas, no chip. He’s still tiny, probably only three to six months old, is very social and is fully litter-trained, so he must have been a pet before we found him.

One thing we asked in our postings was that anyone claiming him needed to provide pictures of him with their family. Every new kitten coming home gets dozens, if not hundreds, of photos taken during the first weeks in its new home, so that should be an easy task.

We have received no positive results from our multiple postings, or the poster in the shop. So, I made a handful of laminated posters and went old school, putting them up around the neighbourhood, but had received no response at the time of writing this column.

So, Moonlight, as my family has named him in the meantime, is currently living a life of luxury in our home. He has fit in OK with the dogs. Rey’s nose is still a little out of joint when Moonlight saunters by, but she’s taken no aggressive action towards him, and Leia doesn’t seem to notice him at all. At mealtime, he’s learned to join the begging line.

We are still hopeful that his original family will be found. If not, it seems as though his place in our home has been staked out.

This is not the way to properly bring a pet into your home – it’s a 20-year commitment after all – and, while cats are quite elf sufficient, they still need care and maintenance that may not be convenient. As a family, we are in the fortunate situation that a kitten isn’t a burden we cannot handle, and I am sure that if he does spend the next 20-plus years with us, he will more than pay his way.

Hey, Moonlight, I think there’s a mouse in the basement…