We've had our cat for about 18 months, he's lovely and the children adore him. He's very friendly and got a beautiful fluffy long tail, I think he's gorgeous!
He's always loved the outside cat day and night but used to come home every day for dinner and cuddles. We have a field behind our house and he's always been in there.
This summer he started going off more, for 1 - 2 days at a time. He'd always come back when it rains. I briefly got a tracker to see where he went, he lost it after 2 days (!) but it showed he'd just been round the field.
The last month he's been off more and more, 2 - 4 days at a time all weather. Sometimes he comes back in the rain but isn't very wet. I'm worried someone else is trying to adopt him.
Looking for him a few days ago, I asked a boy on the street who said 'oh yeh I've seen him up the end of the road, an old lady there feeds them all'. He came home that night but has been gone again since.
I'm wondering when he comes home next, whether to keep him in for a while (and bribe him with lots of treats). He'll scratch at the door and yowl, but I want him to remember this is his home! Will this work? I've seen other threads where neighbours have refused to stop feeding other people's cats, and I want to avoid banging on random people's doors and accusing them of stealing my cat if I can...
Sorry this turned into a bit of an essay... Just hoping he comes back soon and stays 
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The litter tray
My cat keeps wandering off
EssenceOfGelfling · 12/10/2014 08:20
Apparently cats are solitary animals and aren't programmed to like each other. Apparently they just tolerate each other because they've started to evolve that way because of humans keeping more than one cat, so getting another cat for company doesn't always work.
Of course there's always the exceptions that make the rules, they're probably a bit further up the evolutionary ladder than others.
looks at ragdoll cat and feral kitten being nice but stupid having a cuddle and doubting that they're in any way further evolved than my clever solitary tabby girl
I appreciate that some people may want the companionship of a cat without the burden of care, especially vets bills, worming, etc. They don't have to see my children's faces though when they come down in the morning and see that pusscat still hasn't returned
We've not had much success with collars. We've only gone for quick release ones and never had them last longer than a couple of days before getting lost. With the GPS collar, we put a homing device on too anticipating he would lose it, but that didn't work so either it broke or it got taken off....
I've had a cat stolen before, she was DSs therapy cat and when she decided to move out to the old man down the road she decided to be right evil to us when we tried to steal her back so I had to let her go 
I ended up taking in a gorgeous adult ragdoll cat because she had gone and he is amazing with DS. Plus the old man who stole her keeps coming round giving me tins of cat food that stolen cat has rejected because she now thinks she's the queen and only eats fresh tuna breast so it ended up working out ok for us in the end.
I was completely gutted for ages though
Tuna breast 
But on a serious note, if old man cat thief is feeding her muscle meat and nothing else, that's not good. Cats need taurine, which isn't present in muscle. If he went to the trouble of stealing your cat, he should at the very least give her a proper diet. 
Re collars - mine wear the quick release safety ones. I know they can remove them themselves because when they first started to wear theirs', I found them discarded around the house. Now they've got used to them, they don't take them off.
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