Where is Stitch? Cat lost, found, lost again on family move through B.C.

On a family move from Alaska to Illinois, through B.C., the Becks' twocats made a great escape out of a hotel room.

After an epic journey of being found, delayed and lost again, the rescue cats, siblings named Lilo and Stitch,still face a long trip home.

The two pets first escaped a hotel room in Whitehorse, Yukon where the Beck family had stopped overnight earlier this summer.

"We spent hours searching for the cats, going in the rooms and out of the rooms and calling for the cats," said Stephanie Beck.

When they couldn't be located, the family had to move on or risk missing the deadline to meet up with their belongings that were being shipped ahead of them.

They left their contact information with the hotel manager in the hopes the cats would turn up.

Brushes with B.C. wildfires

And, eventually, the two cats did show up.

Beck organized getting them movedto the U.S. rescue organization that transportsanimals by semi truck.

"They came and picked them up, everything was okay except that they couldn't go very far because of all the fires," she said, referring to the wildfires that swept B.C.'s Interior and northern regions last summer.

"In three weeks, they made it from Whitehorse to the Prince George area."

All was going smoothly, although slowly, until Beck received a message on Thursday.

Lost, round two

Stitch was missing again.

The cat vanished either at the ITM Trucking at 9888 Milwaukee Way in Prince George, or at the turnabout by the Moffat Bridge going to West Quesnel.

"There's a fantastic group of people that has really, really been searching," Beck said. "But there is no evidence of him so far."

For now, Lilo is staying with one of the searchers until a solution is found to transport her further south.

"Lilo is kind of a chicken and Stitch was her rock. She's kind of a little basket case right now," Beck said.

"My six-year-old cries pretty much every day still she wants her Stitch back."

Stitch is described as a brown tabby cat with white on his chin.

With files from Daybreak North andRobert Doane.

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