LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — “Only in Vegas” is what a security officer at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino said when he saw a guest holding a cat that had just been found in her room. It was not, in fact, the guest’s cat.
The adventure of the hotel cat began almost two weeks ago when, according to Lindsey Sanders, the woman who found the cat. Someone staying in this Excalibur room appeared to have lost their cat. Six days later, Sanders and her husband were woken up at 4 a.m. only to see a cat standing in their room.
Sanders has documented the whole adventure on her TikTok channel, including a couple of recent updates. Her initial video about finding the cat has been viewed well over 1 million times.
Sanders and her husband are both veterinarians and were in town for a conference, but they never expected to be rescuing a lost cat during their stay.
“The third night, I heard some weird sounds,” Sanders told Nexstar’s KLAS. “I thought it was in the hallway.” She then told her husband to check it out. “I was like, oh, you know, maybe you should go check it out and see if you see anything,” Sanders said. “So he got up, and he turned on his light, and he goes, ‘There’s a cat in here.'”
Standing in the middle of their room was a grey and black cat. Sanders said it was friendly, and she was fairly confident it was not a wild cat.
It also helped explain why their personal items had been knocked from the bathroom counter during their stay and the suspected urine in the shower.
Security was called to the room, and they showed up with a leash, which Sanders warned wasn’t a good idea since the cat was already scared. Eventually, after realizing security only had a large dog crate, the cat was placed in a pillowcase to be taken downstairs and put into the crate.
Sanders said during the exchange with security, the cat once again hid, revealing its hiding spot: a space about three inches tall under the bathroom sink.
Security ultimately had to take the sink apart to get the cat out of the hidden compartment.
A security officer later told Sanders that the previous guest had reported losing their cat. Sanders later found out it was a person moving from Reno to Las Vegas who stayed in the room prior to her.
Security was able to contact the cat’s rightful owner and reunite the pair later that night.
According to Sanders, the cat appeared to be in good health, even after not eating for six days. She believes the cat had been drinking water from the toilet, a habit the feline’s owner said it did at home.
KLAS has reached out to MGM about this incident but has yet to hear back.
