Sweet"ie" story

What a rare happy ending. Let's hope all our lost friends don't take this long to come home.

CAIRO, Ga. -- It took seven years, but a missing cat finally has been reunited with its owners.

The McGuire family had spayed "Sweetie" in April 2000 after she gave birth to a litter of kittens.

But soon afterward, the cat disappeared and was thought lost -- until a December 15th storm brought an extra cat to their door.

The family noticed that among their eight other cats, there was another cat that looked a lot like Sweetie's offspring. When Marty McGuire called her Sweetie, the cat answered. Says McGuire -- quote -- "We assumed she had gotten run over, or died."

The cat was identified from the two staples that had never been removed from the spaying operation. A vet told the family the cat may have had a reaction to the anesthesia and could have become disoriented and lost.