sorry about that...
Um, well, in United, yes, you can use your miles to get an award for anyone... and yes, you can give them awards on UA's partners, BUT...

The airline makes it hard to do this if the ticket cannot be purchased online. As we know, some cannot be.

The owner of said miles can call in (pay the $15 fee too) to reserve the ticket for I think 48hrs max but then he needs to--get this--Go to an actual UA desk (normally just found at airports these days, which means it's not always convenient to do it) and sign a blue card--hence the name--which authorizes the use of his own miles for and award ticket in someone else's name. That is, unless it's I think the same last name or something (not hyphenated ones, and probably not pets but who knows)

Big pain in the ars.

The owner of said miles needs to show ID and unless you choose to wait some horrid length of time to have them mail you the tickets (now paper tickets though, and no longer E tickets) this is your ONLY choice!

There are threads on it in UAs forum.

The cat, therefore, would need to have more ID available for examination by a defunct airline than to just get a freakin credit card!