Sketch, a two-year-old cat, suddenly began bringing home gardening gloves, dog toys and other items last month.

Image Credit: Steve Redly

VERNON - It's a dilemma few people will ever have to face, and that many find humorous — a Vernon family is at their wit’s end trying to reunite dozens of items with their rightful owners after their cat stole them from neighbour's yards and dragged them home.

The two-year-old cat named Sketch started lugging home dog toys, gardening gloves and other items about a month ago and now appears to be firmly addicted to the habit, owner Cindy Schmidt says. 

Weirder still, Sketch doesn’t just bring home random gardening gloves — she brings complete pairs. Right now, Schmidt has found roughly 30 pairs of gardening gloves, 16 dog toys, a few sneakers, and someone’s bra.

“We’re not even sure how to stop her from doing it,” Schmidt says. “It’s just totally bizarre.”

At first, she and her husband Steve thought the culprit was one of their other three cats, but Steve stayed up one night and caught Sketch red-pawed. There are other witnesses too — their neighbour saw Sketch make off with several pairs of gardening gloves.

It’s no easy task for the small cat, who has to drag the items through bushes and over a fence to get them into the yard, Schmidt says. Initially, Sketch scattered the items throughout the yard, but has lately taken to piling the growing collection on the deck.

Cindy Schmidt and her daughter Shakira with some of the gloves and dog toys their cat Sketch dragged home.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

Wanting to come clean about their kleptomaniac cat, Schmidt and her husband posted on social media asking anyone with missing gardening gloves or other items to get in touch.

“People think it’s really funny but we’re like, ‘no, this is serious.’ This is not some made-up, weird story we’ve decided to throw out there — we really just want to get these people their stuff back,” Schmidt says.

Since outing their cat on Facebook two days ago, the couple’s original post has garnered nearly 500 likes and numerous comments, but no one has come by to claim their things.

“Maybe it’s just too awkward for people to come and ask for stuff that our cat stole,” Schmidt says.

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