Not Fooling About Feelings for Feline

Bill Johnson has done everything he can think of to find his lost kitten. He’s knocked on his neighbors’ doors, plastered the town with fliers and alerted animal authorities. On Sunday, he placed a $6,200 newspaper ad that boldly begs for help and lists himself as the feline’s “Daddy.”

“The big problem is just that, we can’t find the silly cat . . . Reward!!” the copy says.

The ad--which takes up nearly half the page and shows a picture of Johnson’s other kitten crying for his missing “girlfriend”--drew dozens of phone calls from people criticizing the Anaheim Hills man and questioning his sincerity. No one, he said, offered any advice or help with his search.

“I just want to get my cat back,” said Johnson, 41. “People respond differently to the loss of their pets. This is my way.”

Besides, Johnson said, his is no ordinary house cat. According to La Tigra’s breeder, the kitten is a member of the sixth generation of an unusual cross between an Asian leopard and a domestic tiger cat. Her particular Bengalese breed is about 20 years old, said Juan Gonzales, owner of Elite Bengals in Fontana.

“Poor, poor kitty,” said Gonzales, who sold the kitten to Johnson this summer for $300. “She was the prettiest in the whole bunch.”

Johnson, owner of a direct mail marketing company, took the description much further: “Her coat is white as snow, with a sprinkle of brown stripes and her eyes are the color of the sky.”

That, Johnson said sadly, is why he doesn’t think he will ever see his cat again. “She’s just too beautiful. No one in their right mind would ever give her up.”

Johnson decided to buy La Tigra and another kitten several months ago for company after he separated from his wife of 18 years, who is allergic to cats. He said La Tigra was “instrumental” in the socialization of Pantera, who came from a different litter and “turned my house upside down.” The two cats were inseparable, Johnson said, and now Pantera, whom he calls La Tigra’s boyfriend, is heartbroken.

“Where is my girlfriend? Honey, where are you?” Pantera is shown asking in the newspaper ad.

It’s been seven days since the 21-week-old, declawed kitten slipped out of the house in the middle of the night, probably when Johnson, unable to sleep, went to look for a pack of cigarettes in his car. He suspects La Tigra followed him out the door, which he said he shut but didn’t latch.

Then, to make matters worse, Johnson said he went looking for his kitten the next morning and ran into his neighbor, who had just discovered that a coyote had killed her own cat.

“It’s stupid; it’s all my fault,” he said of La Tigra’s disappearance. But for now, and maybe forever, Johnson prefers to believe that the cat is safe at a stranger’s house.

“I can’t think about it any other way,” he said. “If someone found her, she’s fine. Because she can win hearts in a split second.”

Hoping to prove that his search is no joke, Johnson on Monday offered to match his $1,000 reward with a donation to Orangewood Children’s Home. It isn’t that he has a pile of cash to burn on what many callers have described as a “sick game,” Johnson said. And he knows he can’t continue his kitty campaign indefinitely.

He just wants his cat back.

“Why is that so hard for people to understand?” he said. “I’m talking about the sweetest, most beautiful cat in the world, and now she’s gone and I don’t even have a picture of her. I can only see her in my mind.”