Escaped cats Handy and Andy wanted back at Cowtown

Wanted: Two members of Old Cowtown Museum’s Rat Patrol. Wichitans are encouraged to be on the lookout.

The two are considered armed with claws, mischievous and extroverts of the feline persuasion.

Handy and Andy, 7-month-old, 5-pound brothers, are known for their distinctive gray tiger fur. They may have wandered from the living history museum’s 17-acre complex sometime on July 8, according to Jacky Goerzen, the museum’s director.

They have not come back and Goerzen is hopeful the two are still alive and just need a gentle nudge back to their 1870s home life.

The two are the newest full-time employees at the museum and help keep the mice population at bay on the museum’s farm. And although they claim no monetary salaries, they have the best of care.

For more than three decades, the museum has kept cats on the grounds — Kitty Ambassadors, if you will. Their job is to welcome visitors.

Indeed, part of the visitor experience is to walk along the living history museum grounds and see black, yellow, striped and fuzzy cats suddenly appear — from underneath buildings, out of granaries and across boardwalks.

In 1987, Shirley Hutchison, who was working in one of the Cowtown shops, noticed the museum cats scrounging from garbage cans.

A soft-hearted person with cats and dogs of her own, Hutchison took on the daily feeding chores of Cowtown’s cat herd, which in past years has been a steady population at 20 cats. Like clockwork, each morning, Hutchison and a few other people have voluntarily fed, medicated, brushed and petted the cats that live at the museum.

But Hutchison is now in her 70s, and the cat population has dipped in recent years because of their own old age and infirmities.

Handy and Andy, Goerzen said, were the latest hires. They work alongside their brother Gill, Ginger and Morgan Earp.

“It’s possible fireworks could have scared them,” Goerzen said.

“We are hoping people, especially in the Riverside area, may see them,” Goerzen said. “They belong to Cowtown. We pay for their food, vet care and surgeries. They are well taken care of and they are our cats.”

The two brothers are showmen, she said. As Cowtown is famously known for its staged gunfight scenes, Handy and Andy are also becoming known for stalking each other on the dusty streets of the museum and suddenly attacking, flipping and wrestling one another.

The two were named for a piano player who used to play for the Dixie Lee Dancers at Cowtown.

“They are super friendly and will rub up on your legs,” she said.

So, if you see the two felines, call Cowtown’s visitors center at 316-350-3323.

“They are stars at Cowtown. We miss them a whole lot,” Goerzen said.

This story was originally published July 12, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Escaped cats Handy and Andy wanted back at Cowtown."