Taffy sighting just a tease
The cat looked like Taffy, but technology said otherwise.
Over the weekend, a Davenport woman thought she had found Taffy, an orange tabby that captured the hearts of Quad-Citians after being lost by Tom and Mary Dohnke of California during a visit to the Quad-Cities last summer.
Taffy has been implanted with a microchip that shows its name, owner and contact information.
When the cat was scanned Monday, it wasn’t Taffy.
Joyce Almquist’s husband saw a cat in their neighborhood off Utica Ridge Road on Sunday and she caught it. She recalled the missing cat’s markings and thought it looked like Taffy. She thinks she saw Taffy running loose last year near 53rd Street before knowing the cat’s saga.
Tom Dohnke talked to Almquist on Sunday night and was on pins and needles waiting to hear whether it was his long-lost buddy, but also was realistic about the chances that his friend finally had been found.
“I’ve been there a hundred times when people have said they have Taffy,” he said. He tersely passed on the news of the faux feline later Monday.
Almquist knew from the moment she saw a picture of the real Taffy on Monday that the cat she’d caught wasn’t the California cat. She took the cat to the Humane Society of Scott County.
Taffy disappeared from the Dohnkes’ RV on Aug. 3 while they were parked at Lowe’s on Elmore Avenue in Davenport. After traveling five weeks cross-country in their RV for a family reunion and visiting fellow Vietnam War veterans, they’d stopped at Wal-Mart for the night. Taffy, on a harness, got spooked, slipped the harness and hasn’t been seen since. Dohnke stayed behind in the Quad-Cities for weeks, searching for his lost cat and putting up posters.
Taffy is a tabby with a white chest, black dots on his mouth and big yellow eyes. He is microchipped, neutered and has all of his claws.
Kurt Allemeier can be contacted at (563) 383-2360 or kallemeier@qctimes.com.