A family in Long Island, New York, was reunited with their lost cat thanks to the feline’s intelligence and a doorbell camera that alerted their owners to the pet’s safe return home.
lilly, an 8-year-old gray shorthair cat, activated her family’s doorbell on Sunday, August 2. on January 14, after going missing for nearly a week in mastic beach, new york, lilly’s owner stefanie whitley told fox news digital.
Whitley was in the kitchen washing dishes while her fiancé, Ephraim (Chip) Leandry, watched TV in the living room with their five children.
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whitley said she and her family had recently moved from a nearby neighborhood and lilly accidentally left last month.
lilly is an indoor-outdoor cat, though she was not yet familiar with her new surroundings.
“It was very scary to have her missing for days, especially knowing that she always talks back,” Whitley told Fox News Digital.
“you can call her by her name and she comes out of nowhere. but this time it was different.”
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whitley said she and her family searched and searched and gave up all hope of finding lilly.
then, that Sunday night, the cat came to the door of the family home and began to meow loudly for her loved ones.
Lilly’s presence activated the ring’s camera. Later, her face appeared on every device in the family’s home, including the television that Whitley’s fiancé and her children were watching at the time, she said.
“We all just yelled, ‘oh my gosh, lilly!’,” said whitley, who works in an ophthalmologist’s office.
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“the kids thought she was hysterical because the way she meowed sounded like ‘mom'”
whitley said she and leandry, a cath lab technician, have a blended family.
the couple have five children: shamel, 14, jayden, 12, soleina, 10, sienna, 8, and sailor, who turns 2 in October.
they all love animals and look forward to adopting more, just like they did with lilly, he said.
A firefighter rescued Lilly and took the cat to a local veterinary clinic eight years ago, before Whitley took her in, he said.
whitley said she’s proud of lilly for finding her way home and thinks the cat somehow knew how to activate the camera on her own.
“Every time [the doorbell camera] goes off, she goes to the door or she goes to the window,” Whitley said.
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Video showing lilly activating the doorbell camera was first shared on a ring community app.
Since then, it has garnered a lot of attention online and on news stations, Whitley said.
“we’ve been watching the news [broadcasting] her video. you have to see her face when she sees it on tv.”
“If it hadn’t been for that notification that night, we wouldn’t have known she was there,” Whitley added.
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to see the moment lilly “rings” the doorbell on her family’s door, watch the video at the beginning of this article.
