When a thin, dirty, orange cat wandered into Adam Sontag and Danielle Reiss’s backyard in Glen Cove in August 2021, they thought they would help a lost pet find its way home.
Instead, the cat they named Alfie would take them on a five-year journey that began with concern for a neighbor’s animal, unfolded with the help of one of Nassau County’s largest cat-rescue operations and ended with an unexpected reunion.
“We decided his name was Alfie five years ago,” Sontag said — inspired by Reiss’s grandfather, Alfred. “It was never, like, ‘Oh, do you remember that cat?’ It was always Alfie.”
The couple had moved into their Glen Cove home only a month before Alfie appeared in their yard. “He looked like he’d been lost for a long time,” Reiss said.
Recognizing him as a Scottish straight, Reiss assumed that someone nearby had to be looking for him. The couple posted photos in local Facebook groups, hoping to reunite him with his owner. Neighbors responded, but no one claimed him.
“It had been known in the area to some people that there was a woman who’s breeding cats and that they frequently got out,” Reiss said.
The couple took Alfie to a veterinarian, who told them he appeared malnourished. According to Sontag and Reiss, homeowner Olena Horbatko later contacted them after seeing the Facebook post, and said the cat belonged to her and had recently escaped. That explanation didn’t seem logical, Reiss said, given Alfie’s condition.
“When we first found him, I thought he’d been out for a long time because of how dirty and malnourished he was,” she said. “If this cat only just got out, then I don’t think she’s treating him well.”
Rather than turn Alfie over to Horbatko, the couple contacted the Glen Cove Police Department. “I’m just concerned for this animal’s safety,” Reiss recalled telling officers.
Police later took custody of Alfie, and according to Sontag, the cat was ultimately returned to Horbatko when she proved that she owned him by identifying a permanent identification tag implanted under his skin, which could be accessed through radio frequency technology to produce a serial number.
“At that point we just knew that there was a crazy situation in our neighborhood,” Sontag said.
Even after Alfie was gone, the couple never forgot him. Over the next five years, Sontag and Reiss continued noticing numerous delivery boxes from chewy.com, a website where pet owners can buy food and treats. Boxes were left in front of Horbatko’s house on St. Andrew’s Lane.
That changed in June, when authorities executed a search warrant at Horbatko’s home, and rescued roughly 160 cats and two dogs (“More than 100 cats rescued from Glen Cove home,” June 11-17).
John Di Leonardo, founder and executive director of Humane Long Island, said that the Nassau County district attorney’s office asked his organization to help remove cats hidden throughout the house. “We were there for about three weeks ripping open walls, ceilings, floorboards, pulling cats out,” Di Leonardo said. “It was very difficult to breathe in there,” he said of the overpowering smell of the uric acid in cat urine.
As the rescue unfolded, Sontag had only one question. “The first thing I did was walk over and say, ‘Have you seen this cat?’” He still had Alfie’s microchip number, which he had written down five years earlier.
Sontag began calling shelters, rescue organizations and investigators, comparing newly released photos of the scores of rescued cats with pictures he had taken of Alfie in 2021.
“Every place that we found that had gotten some of the cats from her house, we called to see if they had him,” he said.
As days passed without answers, he began losing hope.
After commenting on a Nassau County District Attorney Facebook post thanking investigators and asking about an orange cat, Sontag received a reply from the Hudson Valley Humane Society. The organization believed it had a cat matching Alfie’s description.
Sontag sent the microchip number, and about an hour later, the confirmation arrived. The HVHS had a match.
When asked when he wanted to pick Alfie up, Sontag didn’t hesitate. “Now,” he said. “We’ll be coming now.”
When the couple arrived at the shelter on July 3, Reiss said she knew immediately that Alfie remembered them. “When we got there and Adam walked up to the cage he was in, I swear he recognized Adam,” she said. “He started walking towards him. He immediately let Adam pick him up.”
Today, Alfie is settling into life with three feline siblings — Moose, Marvin and Juniper — in Sontag and Reiss’s home.
“His personality has been coming out a lot more in the last few days,” Reiss said.
Sontag said that Alfie has remained remarkably even-tempered despite everything he endured. “Nothing fazes him,” he said.
For Di Leonardo, hearing that Alfie had found his way back to the couple who never stopped looking for him was a welcome ending after weeks spent rescuing cats from the home.
“It was all the sweeter when we heard from Adam,” Di Leonardo said. “So it really was a happy ending and a much sweeter note to end on for us.”
Five years after they first named a frightened stray, Sontag and Reiss finally gave Alfie the home they had always hoped he would have. “We didn’t get five years with him,” Sontag said. “But we got him.”
