Loved pet at
end of Rainbow

Rainbow is a cat with a guardian angel. At least that’s what her owner Paula Novak believes.

The 15-year old female part-pedigree tortoiseshell went missing from her Titirangi home about two months ago. Ms Novak had all but given up hope after appealing to the public for help.

The artist had even painted a memorial stone for Rainbow. But then she heard a meow at the door. She went to the door expecting to shop away one of the neighbourhood’s marauding cats. Instead she found her long lost pet.

The cat had a strip of fur hanging off her body and was skin and bone. Ms Novak says the vet was amazed the cat had survived its ordeal. She says Rainbow who has had Phoenix added to her name seemed a bit listless and unwell in the days leading up to her disappearance – adding weight to the theory she may have gone away somewhere to die.

 Friends told Ms Novak to get another cat but "it didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t feel right," she says. Ms Novak is impressed with the cat’s resilience. It’s dogged determination," she says.