"Hiro", Balinese Siamese, San Francisco - Found!

(This letter is from Hiro's people.)
Hi Jackie

I have been meaning to email you for a couple reasons: the first is that Hiro came back! He was gone two weeks to the day, and then at 3:30 in the morning, we woke up to him meowing outside our door. He was really skinny and hungry, but fine otherwise. I wish he could find out what happened, but it looks like we will never know. Just happy to have him back.He is fully recovered from his ordeal and back to normal....one funny thing is that before he left he would only eat his dry food, or wet food with tuna. Now he will eat anything if we give it to him. Must have had to eat anything while he was gone to survive I suppose.


(These are the search details.)
Hiro is a three year old white with grey point Balinese. He is wearing a black collar, is neutered and microchipped. He is very friendly with people.

We started the search outside his front door and started to check the surrounding area. We found a track that led down a very busy street (Is there anything else in San Francisco?). I asked his people what might be down this way, and he said, "This is the way I walk to work." I asked the dogs several times along the way to check for scent on the sides and I would get a "no." So we kept going down the street, following the scent.

I tried to figure out what was happening. It appeared that Hiro had been picked up somehow. It wasn't in a car or in public transportation since we were going the wrong way down a one way street. Could he be carried? Yes, however, Hiro is 13 pounds, so it would be difficult carrying him. They would have to have some type of large bag to hold him.

The track continued down the street, crossed Market street in the crosswalk and then headed up Market going in the opposite way. The track all the way up Market street for several miles. Then it crossed again in the crosswalk and then made a left veer down a walking/bike path. The track went up the street, through a school along the paved path and then out onto the street. At this point, Hiro's people stopped the track. We still had a long way to walk back.

This is what we came up with. Hiro was definitely carried away. It was either a bike, scooter or skateboard of some type or even a shopping cart by a homeless person. Hiro's people said that homeless people definitely are seen in the area. The length of distance was too great to carry walking an uncooperative cat. I asked his people if they knew of any neighbors who were unhappy with Hiro. They said that their next door neighbor had made complaints about Hiro going into her yard because she felt Hiro agitated her indoor cat. As it happened when we first started the search, Dino followed the track into a small courtyard into a building directly to Hiro's people's apartment building. They said that is where the neighbor lives. My guess is that their neighbor had somebody take Hiro a long distance away and drop him off so that he could not make it home. However, it appears that he did make it home!