Maureen Cianci first met her cat Shay when she rescued it as a kitten in a Bogalusa, Louisiana swamp after Hurricane Ike. Cianci, a social worker, was down south doing relief work for Hurricane Katrina survivors.

On Sept. 10, the two, who never slept apart in six years, became separated following a two-car crash on Wiscasset’s Route 1. Cianci and her husband of 33 years, Larry Burridge, were southbound when their Subaru collided with a car turning north out of the Sea Basket.

The cat fled when Burridge tried to retrieve it from the car after the crash. They had been transporting her in a box because the door on their cat carrier was broken.

Shay (short for Sashay because she walks at a sashay) bolted; the coming days brought a couple of reported sightings; help from Maine Lost Cat Recovery; others who looked around the neighborhood; and Shekara Davis, the Connecticut couple’s new neighbor in  Waldoboro, where they’d just bought a home.

Cianci continued to deal with a swollen eye and other injuries from the crash, but she and Burridge, along with a Falmouth friend they were staying with, kept returning to Wiscasset to look.

Cianci was getting discouraged.

“I’ve been sick inside, and so worried about her ... I closed my eyes, and got a mental picture in my head, and begged her to let me find her.”

It was after that the Cianci felt like she should check behind a business on the same side of Route 1 as the Sea Basket, Huber’s Market.

On Sept. 15, in the area behind Huber’s Market, Cianci spotted Shay on a pile of wood. She called out the cat’s nicknames. Shay looked at her owner, but wouldn’t come to her, eventually disappearing back into the pile, Cianci said.

On Sept. 16, the couple returned, spotted the cat there again and tried to lure her with tuna. She came closer, but appeared to still be nervous, Cianci said.

She and her husband didn’t move, she said.

“We were like two statues.”

When Shay was close enough, Burridge grabbed her.

“I had a carrier. He stuffed her in and I slammed the door shut,” Cianci said Tuesday night, in a telephone interview shortly afterward while Burridge drove the three of them home to Waldoboro in a rental car.

The couple expressed their thanks to all who helped in the week-long search. And Cianci said she hopes the good outcome will serve as encouragement to others with missing pets.

“Don’t give up,” she said.

Davis, who had already started to get to know Shay since Cianci and Burridge became her neighbors, went to visit the three Tuesday night. Shay was still a little nervous just about an hour after her rescue, but came right over to her, Davis said.

“I’m so happy for all of them,” she said.