Sometimes the least dangerous suspects are the most difficult to apprehend.
Authorities in Auckland, New Zealand, received a call claiming a “little orange and white ball of fluff” was attempting to cause accidents on the Southwestern Motorway.
Police responded quickly and discovered the source of the disturbance: a little kitty hunched against a concrete barrier.
“Unfortunately, she was startled by the approaching officer and sprinted across three lanes of live traffic,” police wrote on Facebook. “She nearly avoided the worst-case scenario.”
Because the police were confined on a short strip in the middle of the road, they had no choice but to temporarily block the whole route. This additional precaution paid off, as they were able to grab the cat and bring her to safety shortly after.
“It took them a little more than a half hour to rescue her,” Shelley Nahr, the department’s communications coordinator, told The Dodo.
But, like any rambunctious cat, she wasn’t done creating chaos.
After putting her into his patrol car, one officer made a brief phone call before driving away. That’s when he saw the kitten was nowhere to be found.
“He searched high and low and came up empty-handed,” police added. “Until he heard a faint meow from the dashboard.”
The kitten had somehow gotten herself inside the dashboard, so they drove to a nearby mechanic to retrieve her for the second time in one day.
After removing the whole dashboard from the police car, techs discovered the cat exactly where they expected: snuggled behind a heating fan.
It wasn’t long until the small cat got herself a forever home, her third stroke of luck for the week. Glenda, the dispatcher who answered the first 911 call about the cat, believed the kitten would be the ideal addition to her family.
“She is now living with her new owner and her three kids,” Nahr explained. “They have a bulldog named Dobby, so they named her Winky as that is the elf’s best friend’s name in the ‘Harry Potter’ novels.”
While Winky arrived with fleas and cat illness from her previous life as a stray, she is responding well to medication and is anticipated to recover completely.
And, as expected, Dobby and Winky are becoming great friends.
