Lately, the city of Chicago has been rocked by a feud involving an artist from Logan Square named Rae Bees and an animal shelter called Feline Friends, and at the center of the disagreement is a poor little kitty who happens to be named after comedian/musician Reggie Watts. Apparently, cat Reggie is fairly mischievous and has a tendency to run away from his home, which he did three months ago, but when someone found him and took him to a vet, his tracking chip brought up Feline Friends—which is where Bees adopted him from five years ago. Feline Friends then refused to return the cat to Bees even after she filed a lawsuit, saying she broke a contract by allowing the cat to go outside.
Now, human Reggie Watts is getting involved, spreading awareness for the cat’s story and using his Twitter page to share a link to a crowdfunding campaign that Bees is using to raise money for her legal fees. In an email to the Chicago Tribune, human Watts said, “I’d love to help her get her cat back,” adding, “after all, the cat is a version of myself in some way.” He’s also planning to make a video to help get the word out about cat Reggie and he tells the Tribune that the shelter refusing to return him is “irrational.”
In attempts to make amends with Feline Friends, Bees has already offered to give the organization “open access” to a GPS tracking collar, post a $1,500 bond that it’ll get if the cat goes missing, and even make time for regular video calls so the agency can see that Reggie is alright, but Feline Friends rejected the offers. Now, thanks to a court order, she’s allowed weekly visitations with the cat, but she thinks he’s “stressed and bored” living in the “cat foster home.” Feline Friends, meanwhile, only says that it just cares about “the health and safety of the cats it entrusts into people’s care.”
Of course, the most important thing in all of this is getting to see a video of cat Reggie playing with toys and being a good little fur-boy, but you’ll have to go to this Tribune link for that.