Missing Cat

[iloveglee]

7 months ago we re-homed an 8 year old female cat whose owners were going to live abroad. they wanted her to have the kind of life she had always had, i.e. going outdoors when she wanted which they couldn't do for her in their new home. we kept her inside for 5 months - which was during the winter so she wasn't too bothered about going out. for a couple of months since the nicer weather she has shown a lot of interest in going out. we started by taking her out on the garden on a lead to familiarise herself, and supervised other excursions after that for a while, and limited her time outside. in the last few days she has carefully ventured a little further, onto the next door garden, then came back and went in. she has done this several time, but the other night she went out in the early evening, in the same direction as before, but came back just after 10 o'clock. yesterday, she went out, in a very determined way, never hesitated at all, never looked around, just went, jumped over the fence again in the same direction as before, and disappeared. we haven't seen her since. she has now been missing for 30 hours and i am really worried that she has got lost. the direction she was heading is all undergrowth, and woods which is the kind of terrain she was used to in her former home and the kind of terrain where she would be likely to leave a scent trail. how likely is it that she will come back, even after 7 months will she have remembered where she used to live and try to get back there. she is very timid and took a long time to get used to us but for the last few months she has been very friendly, sleeps on the bed and loves to get close to us. she is chipped and i have reported this on the website. i am going to put flyers through local letterboxes to ask people to check their huts and garages but i just don't see her approaching people or houses, she is nervous of people. i just don't know what else to do.

[murraymints]

too early to panic...she may go back to previous home go there and check with new occupants...and check with local vets..if she is chipped and turns up at a vet or cat home place you'll get a phone call...but I would wait another day or so.. cats are very resilient...

[boxtops]

I feel really sorry for you - our Rover went missing for seven months, it's a horrible feeling.

We also took on someone's older kitten a few years back, when the neighbour moved (like you). He seemed happy for a while, then one day just upped and went - a few weeks later, OH found him living in the pub a few hundred yards away, he was very happy there so we left him.

Notify all your local vets, the local Cats Protection League, (I hate to say this) the dustmen, walk those woods and call her name. I am glad she is chipped - the only way we got Rover back was because he was handed in as a stray and his ID told them who he was.

She will remember where she used to live, but she'll remember you, too. Go round to the old house and ask the new people to tell you if she turns up - it could take quite some time.

Let us know how this goes - I do feel for you.

[Buenchico]

I can understand how you feel because I've got 5 cats and I'm constantly doing a head count to check that I know where they all are (even if it's only half an hour since I last saw them!).

However I still wouldn't worry too much. Nearly all of the cats I've had in the past have 'gone walkabout' for several days during periods of hot weather but every one of them eventually came back.

[iloveglee]

thank you for all the kind words and reassurance. we have walked the woods, calling and throwing bits of used cat litter in the hope that if she has lost the scent she might pick it up again. her old owners lived about 30 miles away, don't know how many miles a day a cat can make if that's what she is aiming to do. the report on the microchip website alerts all the vets and animal professionals within a 30 mile radius so they should all be aware by now. it did occur to me that with the weather being so warm she has gone to ground somewhere cool and quiet and of course we don't know for sure that she didn't come back in the middle of the night and find herself unable to get in. we dont as yet have a catflap. tonight if she hasn't come back we will leave the conservatory window wide open so if she does come back she might try to get in that way. i realise we shall probably have every nocturnal cat in the neighbourhood in as well but i suppose needs must. i am just hoping that she has taken a liking to us enough to want to come back here, but i can't be sure of that. she has a good home here but the outside obviously isn't as familiar to her as her previous home was.

[jakep]

When I was involved in animal rescue I found new homes for many cats. The new family were advised to keep the cat indoors for 3 to 4 weeks.
After 7 months she knows where her home is. She will hopefully be back to you very soon.

[Peaspeculiars]

iloveglee, this is the time of year when people are in and out of their sheds and garages - the first thing to do (if you haven't already) now is to ask your neighbours to check their sheds and make sure she hasn't settled inside for a snooze in the shade and got locked in. And yes, check the old address and leave a contact number (when we moved into our house one of their cats came back, so we called them and they collected the cat).
Leave some water and food out tonight just in case she comes back whilst you are asleep (the hedgehogs may eat it, but at least you have left some out for her).
She will more than likely toddle back to you. 7 months is definitely long enough for her to know what's what. I know it's heartbreaking - place a photo and a message on local facebook community pages and on Gumtree as 'lost' and don't give up. As long as she is chipped, she should be reunited with you eventually.

[iloveglee]

thank you, i do hope so. i slightly take heart, only slightly though, from my next door neighbour whose cat was seriously spooked around bonfire night (we get fireworks round here for at least a month around that time), he ran across a big dual carriageway and ended up on a housing estate quite a distance away. he was such a creature of habit, never stayed out all night, she knew when he didn't return he was lost. we don't know this cat's habits as an outdoor cat so don't know if this is normal for her. the next door cat is also a timid cat who would run away from people but fortunately someone managed to grab him in her garden and get him home. he must have seriously sharpened up his survival skills during that time, he was not a cat to move into a second home, but he was neither thin nor bedraggled. i am trying not to panic but feel so bad that we took her in and now seem to have lost her.

[Prudie]

I do feel for you, you must be worried sick. The first thing I'd agree with from other posters is she definitely won't be lost and would know her way back to your home. Unfortunately it will be a tense time for you waiting to know her whereabouts. She could have chosen to trek off to her previous home, there is always the chance sadly that she's had an accident or just as likely it's this very unusual hot weather. My cat is wanting to stay out all hours at the moment, I hope it's just that. Let us know.

[Sqad]

She will be back....almost certainly.

[tonyav]

iloveglee, try not to panic, cats love to go walkabout. My mom used to have one particular cat that would disappear sometimes for a week at a time. He used to come back as if he had only been out for an hour !.

[Peaspeculiars]

Please don't feel bad - you have done nothing wrong, in fact quite the opposite - you have given a cat a home that would have seriously struggled to find a new home had she been put in a rescue by the previous owners, you stepped in and saved the day. You have kept her inside to get her settled for much longer than most would because you care so much and wanted her to know that this is home. Cats, like boxtops says, love to wander and especially when they have been inside for a while - and the weather is so lovely - she is probably sunbathing somewhere and has popped back to be fed whilst you have been asleep when it was cooler.
Whatever the outcome, you did your darnedest to give her a good home - she will remember you did that for her and if she can, she will be back soon.
Please let us know when she does xx All the very best

[iloveglee]

thanks again to everyone for the reassurance. i know that cats can and do try to find an old home although i simply cannot understand how they do it. i comfort myself by thinking that she would almost certainly try to avoid a road, and a built up area where there are people and dogs. she holds her own pretty well with the other cats around here, but i know she doesn't like dogs. her previous home was way out in the countryside and i am pretty sure she would prefer to keep in the same kind of area. i have had a google earth look at the terrain around our house, in the direction she went and there is miles of woodland and fields, more actually than i realised. there are loads of places a cat could hide out and i am just hoping she is somewhere like this and may come out when she becomes starving. then again, she may be catching creatures and eating them, i just don't know if this was her habit. i ought to have asked these questions before her previous owners left. i suppose i could try to make contact with them and ask, but i don't want them to know we appear to have lost her.

[wolf63]

She is probably sitting on somebody's sofa stuffing her face with tuna.

I hope that she makes her way home soon - I would also be frantic if either of my two went missing.

Remember that to you she is a small furry animal but she thinks that she is a Tiger.

Do you have a local Cats Protection in your area? You could try posting details on FaceBook and find some strange child and pay them to pound the streets with a sandwich board plastered with 'missing cat' posters.

Good luck

[iloveglee]

we do have cats protection league. we are giving her tonight to come back, tomorrow we will be putting up posters and leafleting the local streets to check their outbuildings. facebook is a good idea we will have to do that but as i dont want her previous owners to know, at least just yet, they are friends on facebook and may see it. i know she is ours now, not theirs, and it was their decision to let her go to a home where she could have an outdoor life but still ..... whatever helps to get her back.

[jakep]

Is there any news of your cat. I hope so.

[iloveglee]

unfortunately not. she has been gone 6 days now. someone about 10 doors away thought they saw her in their garden 2 days after she went missing, but she ran away. however, we have found out that there is another cat looks almost like her who has been seen by ourselves going down driveways around that house, so it could have been that one. we have searched all around the wooded area where she was heading, as far as a human being can penetrate it, laid used cat litter trails leading back to our house, put vacuum cleaner dust into the air from our house - all the recommended things to help a cat find its trail if it's lost. one of the problems is that she would not come out when anyone, or any other animal is around, and she would not go to anyone. we have left a downstairs window open and easy access for her to get in if she comes back during the night, but she definitely has not been back, i put food down and it has not been eaten. also there are foxes in this wood, we know because we have seen them on the garden at night. i have put notices up, leafleted the surrounding area to check outbuildings and have run out of ideas. someone walks these woods every day and my husband went out during darkness one night alongside the bottom of the garden where the woods start. (i am surprised no one called the police thinking there was a prowler). i don't know what else i can do now. i am beginning to fear we have definitely lost her. thank you for asking, everybody around us knows and are keeping and lookout and asking. there are many cat owners on our street so they all know how worried we are.

[Sqad]

Tough times glee......never give up on cats.

[tonyav]

Agree with sqad, don't give up hope yet.

[wolf63]

I really hope that she is home soon. I would be very upset if anything like this happened to either of my moggies. But as Uncle Sqad says - don't give up on her. :-)

[furrypusscat]

I am also thinking of you and hoping you can post some good news that she has returned home safely. Having taken on 2 young cats from Cats Protection which I haven't allowed out yet I am worried that they may wander off but I know they will have to be allowed there freedom very soon however much I am dreading it. Please keep us posted.