New London ― A local couple’s nearly decade-long search for their beloved cat came to a bittersweet end last week after the feline was discovered more than 120 miles away in New York.

Kimberly and Wilson Scott’s initial elation at being reunited with Fluffer, their 16-year-old tuxedo-colored cat who went missing from Preston in 2015, was short-lived after the pet died just days after his return.

“It’s not the ending we wanted, but we’re thankful we could give Fluffer as much love as possible in his final days,” said Kimberly Scott, 38, on Monday. “He may not have had the life he deserved, but we had a chance to reunite.”

The family’s emotional journey began in 2009 when they adopted the 1-year-old Fluffer from a Montville neighbor who couldn’t afford the expense of caring for the cat.

A year later, the couple moved to a rural section of Preston where Fluffer would split his time between lounging inside and hourslong daily explorations outside. The feisty cat, who carried an embedded microchip, had no qualms about chasing after dogs and turkey vultures or playing fetch with his owners.

“He loved attention,” said Wilson Scott, 41. “He didn’t mind the water ― he'd climb into the bathtub ― and would howl and howl when he wanted to go out.”

Fluffer’s daytime jaunts concluded like clockwork when he’d come home each night, until one July evening in 2015 when he did not return.

“We went house-to-house searching and knocking on doors since some of our neighbors would feed him, too,” Kimberly Scott said.

Even after they moved to their new home in New London in late 2016, the couple never stopped searching for Fluffer.

“Whenever we’d go back to Preston to visit family, I’d yell his name out the window,” Kimberly Scott said.

“We thought maybe he’d followed an animal too far out,” Wilson Scott said.

On Sept. 12, Kimberly Scott answered a call from an unfamiliar number that turned out to be from a Lenox, Mass., veterinarian's office.

“They told us they’d had our cat, and I had to ask them to repeat that, first thinking they were talking about one of our other cats at home,” she said. “They had Fluffer and we dropped everything and drove two hours to get him. But they warned us how bad he looked.”

A veterinarian spots Fluffer

Fluffer had been spotted earlier that morning near Chatham, N.Y., by Sally Umlauf, a veterinarian driving to her job at the Lenox Cat Hospital in nearby Massachusetts. Umlauf, a veterinarian since 2007, wouldn’t typically have been driving that stretch of road near the Taconic State Parkway on Thursday.

“I had been diagnosed in April with a pre-cancererous condition and was coming back from one of my 15 radiation therapy treatments in Albany,” she said. “For me to be on that road at that time of day was flukey.”

Umlauf said she spotted Fluffer looking down into a storm grate on a narrow road shoulder in a “meatloaf” position in which all four paws are tucked under an animal’s body.

“That’s a position cats go into when they're in trouble, and I could tell he was very, very thin,” she said. “I hit the brakes, went in reverse and grabbed him. I started to scratch his head, and he began to purr.”

She placed the weak feline on her lap and drove 30 minutes to her clinic where staff began treatment, including checking for a microchip, a small device about the size of a grain of rice usually injected into a cat’s shoulder area.

“We found the chip, went online and the cat’s contact info came up,” Umlauf said.

When the Scotts arrived, Fluffer was waiting.

“He was wrapped in a heated blanket and was very emaciated, about six pounds when he was closer to 15 when he was lost,” Kimberly Scott said. “His eyes were sunken and infested with fleas.”

“But he came right up to us, meowing, purring and head-butting us,” Wilson Scott said.

Despite his poor health, tests at the Middletown vet office he was brought to hours later showed no alarming blood work, though the cat showed signs of kidney failure and other issues. Elated, the reunited family headed home.

A reunion turns tragic

But on Saturday, less than three days later, Fluffer’s health took a turn for the worse. The Middletown vet office took Fluffer in immediately and relayed the bad news: Fluffer’s organs were failing.

“I was ready to drop $10,000 right there and start applying for new credit cards to pay for whatever treatment he needed,” Wilson Scott said. “But they told us he’d still die at the hospital.”

A short time later, Fluffer was brought back into a waiting room where he was comforted by his owners.

“He died as we were holding and petting him,” Wilson Scott said. “He rolled over for belly rubs and got to feel a human touch at the end.”

The couple is left with several unanswered questions, including how Fluffer ended up two states away.

Wilson Scott initially suspected the feline may have sneaked onto a moving van used by a neighbor, though a quick search turned up no information on anyone in the area moving to where Fluffer was found.

Kimberly Scott, who said she’s never wanted to believe Fluffer was taken and later abandoned, is urging all pet owners to get their pets chipped.

“And not just for safety reasons,” she said. “No matter how bad this outcome was, we have closure.”

Umlauf said it behooves all owners to get their pets chipped. She said for a mainly indoor cat, the outside world can be like a “worm-hole into another universe.”

“There’s different sights and smells, and even being two feet away from a door can be out in the wild to a cat,” she said. “And a cat getting outside can happen for any number of reasons: A broken screen, an unlatched door or a fire.”

Unlauf said there’s a host of stories of cats inadvertently stowing away in moving boxes and vehicles.

“I wish Fluffer could talk, because we’re not going to know definitively what happened, in this story that’s both so happy and so sad,” she said.

Wilson Scott said Fluffer will soon be coming home for the last time.

“We’ll be getting his urn soon,” he said. “We were thankful we were able to give him as much love as possible on that last day.”

j.penney@theday.com