Cat Gets Mailed across Germany

[Woodmonkey]

Tomcat Janosch was just looking for a nice place to sleep when he got into a neighbor's box. Instead, he and the package were shipped halfway across Germany.

When Gitti Rauch hadn't seen her cat Janosch for a day she wasn't particularly worried: The one-year-old tomcat has a habit of disappearing for a day or two. But instead of hiding out somewhere in the neigborhood, the cat was, in fact, half-way across Germany after being accidently sent in the post.

The first thing Rauch, a 44-year-old waitress, who lives in a Bavarian village near the Austrian border, knew about her pet's epic journey was when she received a phone call from a neighbor, the Miesbacher Merkur newspaper reported. "I've sent your cat in the post," Manuela Lueginger sheepishly admitted.

The day before in her cellar, Lueginger had carefully wrapped tape around a package, which contained a child seat that she had auctioned off on eBay. Lueginger then took the package to a post office and mailed it to the family that had bought the childseat.

Twenty-four hours and 717 kilometers (445 miles) later the package arrived in Dorsten, a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where to the surprise of postal workers the box started to move. Once opened, they discovered the cat, which had survived the journey without a scratch.

The cat's owner, said she wasn't too surprised that Janosch hadn't objected to being boxed up and carried off. "This cat has always been a bit special," she said. "He likes to ride in cars, he likes boxes and he never complains."

After discovering the cat, the postal workers first tracked down Leuginger as the sender of the package, and then handed Janosch over to a nearby animal shelter, where he had to wait three long weeks before he was reunited with his owner.

Although the cat might have thought he was getting a free trip, his journey across Germany turned out quite expensive for his owner. In the end, Rauch had to fork out €280 ($440) in train tickets and fees for the animal shelter. "It was worth it," she said. "We're just happy he's now back with us."

The Source