PHOENIX -- A cat recently hitched a 75-mile ride on a spare tire under her owner's truck.

Gil Smith, the cat's owner, was heading from his home in Gilbert, Ariz., to Kearny, Ariz., for business.

When he got out of the truck, he heard a cat in distress and realized with a "sinking feeling" it was his.

Smith said the cat, Bella, was hysterical, shaky, dehydrated and tired, but otherwise OK.

"I have to admit when she got out of that truck, she was kind of like a drunken sailor," Smith said. "She didn't have her sea legs yet."

Bella had taken a nap on the truck's spare tire, which sits on a frame under the truck.

Smith said Bella was smart enough to know not to jump off the tire as the truck was moving.

"She had an opportunity to jump out from there, [but] she would have been so far from home we would have lost her," he said. "The fact that she stayed so close to the truck saved her."

Smith and his wife have adopted three indoor cats, three goats and three chickens. But Smith said Bella, an outdoor cat, adopted the couple years ago and has a special place in his wife's heart.

"She's kind of become a fixture here," he said.

Smith said he canceled his meeting with a state Department of Economic Security official who had driven 50 miles to get to Kearny so he could get Bella home.

"I apologized because I had five appointments with clients that day," Smith said. "I had to take the cat back. I couldn't keep her six or seven hours in a hot truck.

"[It] pretty much blew my day. I knew I had to get [the cat] home safe and sound," he added.

It was either that, or, he joked, get a divorce.

Either way, Smith said he has added a new step to his morning routine.

"I check that truck," he said. "Every time I back out of the driveway, I look at that wheel well."

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