Frantic for more information, she responded and attempted to discern more information from the texter.

“I wanted to know everything. Where had she been hit? When did it happen? Is there a chance she could have survived? I didn’t want Snowshoe lying in ditch somewhere,” she said.

Skura and a family friend drove around the neighbourhood looking for any indication of the incident. They turned up nothing. Krekorian’s texts and phone calls were going unanswered.

In frustration, she posted the phone number on her Facebook page to see if anyone recognized it. Finally, later in the evening, someone answered her phone call: a young woman saying it was her younger brother’s phone. After a bit of back and forth with the parents of two grade school students, it was discovered the whole thing was a prank.

It was the first of more to come.

Krekorian also went through two heart-wrenching experiences with grown men calling and pranking her as well. One claimed he was holding the cat hostage and wouldn’t return it until she and Skura provided a prepaid Visa card with money loaded on it. Eventually, he changed his request and told Krekorian he would slit Snowshoe’s throat if she didn’t pay his outstanding Telus bill. He even went so far as calling Krekorian with a Telus phone agent on the line.

“He said I was his mom and I was going to pay his bill. When I told the operator that he was holding my cat hostage and threatening to slit her throat, they hung up,” said Krekorian. “It defied logic.”

Based on inconsistencies in his story, the couple determined he didn’t have Snowshoe.

A little while later, she received a call from another man, who didn’t bother to block his number. He claimed he ran over Snowshoe with his car on Glendale Avenue near Niagara College.

“He said he was cooking her as we spoke and was going to eat her as a nice stew,” Krekorian said. “What kind of person says that stuff?”

Again, the couple determined the call was a fake. All three incidents were reported to the Niagara Regional Police Service but Krekorian said they were told nothing could be done.

On Wednesday, a letter addressed to Krekorian arrived at their house. It was one of the posters the couple had hung throughout the neighbourhood. The headline “Still Missing” had been crossed out with the words “Dead or Found a New Home” scrawled below it. On the back was a handwritten letter, letting Krekorian know that her “fellow residents of south St. Catharines are tired of seeing this clutter up public property.” All posters will be torn down, it reads, before going on to identify the five stages of grief.

“If you have not gotten to number 5 after more than 4 months, you need professional help,” ends the letter writer.

Krekorian is a nurse by profession and said she found the letter deeply offensive. In part because of its anonymous nature, but also because of a personal tragedy she was still dealing with: a few days before Christmas, her sister died unexpectedly.

“This is a mean-spirited letter, it was not written in any way to be compassionate,” she said. “If this person was actually concerned about my state of mind or my well-being, they could have called or come by and spoken with me about it like adults or a decent human being. Instead it seems like they just wanted to upset me, well they did. It deeply upset me.”

Krekorian grew up down the street from her current home, also on Riverview Drive. She said she’s always felt at home in the neighbourhood and many of her neighbours are the same ones she had as a child. Now, she no longer feels comfortable there.

“This obviously came from someone in the area and it shakes me to the core thinking someone would do something as careless or mean-spirited as this,” she said. “Every time someone walks or drives by, I wonder if that’s the person who’s tearing down our posters or who mailed us that letter.”

Skura said he doesn’t understand how someone could react to a lost pet poster in such a way.

“We just want to bring Snowshoe home,” he said.

Anyone with information on Snowshoe is asked to contact Krekorian and Skura at 905-688-0924 or 289-213-4839.