Skip navigation
sponsored by 

Couple crosses ocean for purrr-fect kitten

After a ton of paperwork, Londoners head back across Atlantic with Sparky

Image: Chris Rasmussen of London, England presses the button on the drinking fountain for his new cat Sparky at the Clare County Animal Shelter in Harrison, Mich.
Ryan Evon / AP
Chris Rasmussen of London, England presses the button on the drinking fountain for his new cat Sparky.
Slideshow
Image: Rusty, a Red Persian cat
  Championship cats
‘Barack’ the Bombay cat, trained trapeze felines and more claw their way through the CFA-Iams Cat Championship competition.

more photos

Slideshow
Image: Don't Badger Me
  Animal Tracks
A nosy badger, a baby alligator, a hungry panda, a growing giraffe – plus more images of cute critters.

more photos

Slideshow
GERMANY-ANIMALS-WILD-BOAR-DOG-OFFBEAT
  Unlikely friends
A pig and a tiger, a monkey and a rabbit, a duck and a dog – these best buddy pairs make some very odd couples.

more photos

Slideshow
  Glamourpuss
Fashionable feline divas strike a pose in wild and bright-colored wigs.

more photos

Video: Pets & animals
  Orangutan’s photos a hit on Facebook
Dec. 6: As a zoo in Vienna quickly learned, the old expression, “monkey see, monkey do,” is still applicable in the Internet age. NBC’s Mike Taibbi reports.

.
updated 2:03 p.m. ET May 17, 2009

HARRISON, Michigan - A British couple traveled nearly 4,000 miles to adopt "Sparky," a black-and-white kitten in central Michigan. Rose and Chris Rasmussen discovered Sparky on Petfinder.com last year and decided to adopt him.

The couple traveled from their suburban London home to the Clare County Animal Shelter in Harrison, where the kitten was an unofficial mascot. They could have had Sparky shipped, but instead decided to make the trip as an adventure, visiting Detroit and Chicago before showing up to adopt their new pet.

After paperwork, quarantine and other final checks, the Rasmussens were to take Sparky to his new home.

Story continues below ↓
advertisement | your ad here

Volunteer Betty Beadle told a local newspaper, The Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant, for an article published Wednesday that Sparky likes to explore and had twice destroyed Christmas trees during his roughly nine-month stay at the shelter.

“He took me here on the other side of the Atlantic,” Rose Rasmussen told the newspaper. “I thought they would say ‘you guys are completely mad.’ ”

According to the paper, a tremendous amount paperwork had to be completed by Clare County Animal Control Director Dave Gendregske before the couple could take Sparky home.

First, Sparky had to be microchipped. Then, there there was a rabies vaccination, a six-month quarantine, and a blood test to ensure Sparky was immune to the disease.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Sponsored links

Resource guide