Rescued cat with nine lives looking for a home

WANTED: A warm and caring home for Landed, a tiny Tiger cat who – as the old adage goes – may just have more than nine lives.

“We honestly thought he was dead,” aid Johnston Police Patrolman David Slinko, who deals with commercial enforcement, about the cat that recently made its way from Warwick to the Central Landfill on Shun Pike. “His eyes were shut tight; he had no movement … he was all but dead.”

The story began on a hot and humid day two months ago when an unidentified tractor trailer truck driver stopped his rig as he was entering Route 37 in Warwick to avoid hitting the cat.

Almost simultaneously, three other trucks blocked the entrance so that the unidentified driver could get out of his truck and pick up the cat before it was hit and possibly killed by oncoming vehicles.

The driver, with his newfound passenger on board, headed to Rhode Island Resource Recovery in Johnston when he spotted Slinko who he immediately told the story about the cat.

Soon thereafter, Slinko called JPD Animal Control Officer Richard Starnino who immediately drove to the Central Landfill put the cat into his vehicle and went directly to a veterinarian at the Ferguson Animal Hospital in North Providence.

“The people at Ferguson were super,” Starnino said. “They immediately started working on him and he soon came somewhat to life.”

In the following weeks, there would be more “special care and treatments” provided for the cat, that Slinko and Starnino nicknamed “Landed” because of how he wound up at the Central Landfill in Johnston.

“I’m an animal lover – first,” Starnino said while explaining various phases of Landed’s ordeal. “I was going to do everything possible to save that cat’s life.”

Which Starnino did, and that meant taking Landed from his current home at the North Providence Animal Shelter at 900 Smithfield Road to the Ferguson Animal Hospital for his much needed treatments.

“Today, he’s full of life,” Starnino said while taking Landed out a petmate sky kennel-type carrier and gently holding the cat for a photograph with Slinko standing by his side. “He’s back to good health; he has all the necessary shots; he doesn’t have aids or leukemia.”

Starnino – as well as Slinko who is also a lover of animals – then paused as they were asked what’s next for Landed.

“We want to find a home for Landed,” Starnino said as Slinko nodded his head with approval. “He’ll make a great pet for some family or a person who loves animals. He’s an inside cat who is ready for adoption.”

All that someone has to do is contact the North Providence Animal Shelter, which the Johnston Police Department shares with the NPPD, and talk to either Starnino or another officer so they put into motion where the Tiger cat will land next.