UPDATE: After surviving one month trapped inside a moving box without food or water and then spending a few more months quarantined at a veterinarian hospital, Mee Moowe is scheduled to be reunited with her family on the island of Maui on Valentine's Day.
“I don’t think we could get a more perfect date!" Ashley Barth, Mee Moowe's owner, told local news channel KHON2.
Original Story:
When the day finally came for Ashley Barth and her family to make the big move to the Hawaiian island of Maui, they were heartbroken. Their family cat, Mee Moowe, had gone missing.
Mee Moowe, Barth told WAVY-TV, must have run away the day the movers came to pack up their Virginia home. Trusting the movers, New World International, could handle the move without her there, she left them alone in the house so she could take her baby to a doctor's appointment, according to local news site Hawaii News Now.
Hoping that their cat would return, the family extended their trip three days. They waited in the empty house, but Mee Moowe never showed up. Eventually, on Sept. 12, the Barths had to leave.
"She's such an important part of our family. She sleeps with my daughter every night," Barth told Hawaii News Now. "So it was devastating when we were unable to find her."
Thirty-six days later, the family's belongings finally arrived on Maui. As the movers began unloading the boxes, they heard a faint and muffled "meow."
“The guy goes, ‘What was that sound?’ and my heart just kind of sunk for a minute," Barth told WAVY-TV. "And I thought, ‘No, no way.’ And then we heard it again. And the guy said, ‘Was that a cat?'”
Immediately, Barth realized it was Mee Moowe, and "everybody started crying," she told local news station KHON2. Her 10-year-old daughter helped free the cat from the box.
After surviving more than a month inside a sealed box with no food or water, Mee Moowe looked strikingly different. Her eyes were crusted shut, she had lost half her body weight, and she exhibited all the typical symptoms of starvation, reports note.
Because of Hawaii's strict animal quarantine and vaccination regulations, Mee Moowe did not have much time with her family after her arrival on Maui. She was supposed to receive her vaccinations with another family member back in Virginia before being properly shipped to the island, but Mee Moowe now has to live with a Hawaii veterinarian for three months in order to receive proper vaccinations.
Although Barth told Hawaii News Now that she blames the moving company for what happened to their cat, she's happy that the smallest member of their family miraculously survived the whole ordeal.
New World International did not respond to The Huffington Post's requests for comment.
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