If your cat went missing

[VenusClapTrap]

...and you found it, where was it? I am going out of my mind with worry about dcat who we last saw at 8pm last night.

She is a 14 year old homebird who rarely goes further than our garden, not a daft kitten who goes exploring. She has never spent all night outdoors - her cat flap locks at 10pm after which time she can come in but not go out, until morning.

We’ve looked in every cupboard and hidey hole. Neighbours have looked in their sheds. I’ve put a notice on the village Facebook page.

I don’t know what else to do. I feel sick with worry.

Car? Garage?

Could you leave cat flap open for her overnight?

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat. I hope that you get some good news soon. I can imagine how ill you are.

When one of my cats went missing, we found her a few days later under a neighbour's floorboards. He'd been having something done or new flooring fitted and she'd somehow gotten inside. So check if you can if anyone has been doing any DIY.

Mine are very inquisitive and will go through any open door. Have you knocked on neighbour's doors? Leafleted? This time of year with lots of people at home garages and sheds are often open with people working on the garden - she could easily have gone in one and got locked in.

Ours have been found in at least three garages in our street, they got in my car when unloading shopping and weren't found for a couple of hours by which point they were sweating (warm day ), tried to climb into the Tesco delivery van, and also been found curled up asleep on a neighbour's bed.

Hope she is home soon.

Boy Cat Twat had got himself locked in a garage will spare you the details & he was luckily ok

Girl cat got herself shut in the neighbours house when they went away for the weekend.

Both frequently behind a plant in the garden ignoring me 🤣

Normally I'd ask if you had any floor boards up? Been in the loft? Front of the bath off? But I guess that all unlikely as it's only been since last night.

I suggest you leave all internal doors open - including cupboards etc they can hide really well under towels, a jumper, in small spaces

Leave the door with the cat flap wide open (check the flap is working as it should)

Shake the dreamies regularly

She'll turn up - scaring you is part of their remit!!

Two of my cats (they were sisters) on different occasions got taken in by a cat loving neighbour who kept them in. It was only upon putting posters up down the street both times that they were released.
This lady took in strays all the time with the best intentions but mine weren’t strays and certainly didn’t look like strays either!

My parents elderly cat went missing once, they were frantic with dad walking the streets most of the night looking for her.
Next day I went round to help the search...sat having a cuppa when I heard a noise, DM said its next doors baby.
I knew it wasn't so told everyone to be quiet whilst I hunted the house.
Dcat had climbed into an open top drawer in their sideboard and somehow managed to work her way in to the middle drawer and was laid on the tablecloths a tad squished up. Lord knows how she manged it as she was far from thin

Fiveshelties the cat flap is on a one way lock - she can come in at any time; it just stops her going outside between 10pm and 7am.

Found mine in the next door neighbours garage. Luckily he is very vocal and when calling him he answered in meows.

Hope you find her soon

We are going to print leaflets now. I’ve already asked all the neighbours (except ones with dogs!).

She’s not the curious sort - too scared of vehicles to get in them, and has never shown any interest in other people’s outbuildings. She rarely leaves the garden, except to occasionally have a look next door, and they’ve recently got a lodger with a cat and they said they’ve not seen her at all since the new cat moved in.

Thank you for your stories of cats who returned. It is helping.

We are going to make leaflets when I’ve fed the kids their lunch.

She has a very loud yowl so if she was stuck somewhere she would make it known.

Try taking out all the drawers in a chest/ unit. Ours used to climb into the drawers then insinuate their way under the drawer at the very bottom of the unit.
Same with the bed - got into the gap between the drawers under the bed, only found by removing the drawers.
Have you checked the tumble dryer / washing machine? Another favourite place. Plus if you have a curtain valance ours once slept up there for ages! Or on top of kitchen cabinets hidden by the pelmet; one even got inside the boiler once.
Hope you find her soon.

Go up and down the street shaking cat biscuit box and calling her name. Bend down low to look under every car. Rustle every hedge.

Take a picture of her with you. Show everyone you pass.
She might have had a fright and be waiting safe somewhere.

With this sunny weather it is probable she has wandered into a usually shut garage or shed.

My dd cat had exactly this. 3 days looking, then they heard her mewing under the garage door up the street. I think we all cried with relief.

Sorry to say our cat was found passed away in a neighbours garden, of natural causes but it was good at least to know hadn't been run over or something and we'd never found out.

This will out me but once workmen were digging up the road and stupid cat got into the pipes UNDER the house! Firemen got him out - they sent the youngest recruit down and were all in fits. Much excitement in the neighbourhood too as the fire engine blocked the road. He was forgiven coz who doesn't love a fireman

Better than posters is to knock on every door or at least post flyer. They tend not to be that far away, I believe. Good luck x

Under the floorboards in the bathroom- she found a hole in the boiler cupboard floor after some stuff was moved and wriggled in then couldn’t get out.

A former neighbour’s cat went missing when they got a new rescue dog. Neighbour went looking for her then put out a Facebook announcement. She was found sleeping on some shoe shelves next to a radiator in someone’s porch. She didn’t normally go exploring but neighbour reckoned new animal in her territory made her search out a hidden space. So maybe a new cat in your cat’s territory has made her shift her routines a bit?

Recently, a cat came around our house persistently. Neighbour knew the family that belonged to the cat but also knew they had moved recently.

So we thought he might be lost, looking for his old home and unable to find way back to new one, plus family not able to go far looking for him due to lockdown. We got in touch with local Cat’s Protection League Facebook group who posted a photo of him. Lady got in touch within a few minutes. We took him in for the night and they came round next morning.

The Cat’s Protection League will also put up photos of lost cats so that could be worth doing alongside your leaflets.

When I found fine she was in a neighbour’s front garden, on my street about 10 houses away, with another cat! She’d been missing two nights and had run off out of the carry case out of the car coming home so I think she was disoriented about where she was. I’d been looking up and down my street and surrounding streets day and night and hadn’t spotted her until that night. I got her to come to me with a treat stick.

Up a tree. Honestly, they'd only been allowed out a couple of months and didn't go far, I walked all round the block looking (and calling and meowing like an idiot), and he was up a tree in the garden.

I hope you find yours.

My old cat got locked in my neighbour's garage - normally she was very noisy but I looked round the garage & she was so terrified I nearly didn't see her crouched in the dark behind his motorbike shaking.
She wouldn't move as she was so scared so I had to pull her out of there - my neighbour kept a guinea pig in a cage in there so that's why my cat had gone in there.

Hope you find your cat soon!!

Ours spent a Bank Holiday weekend locked in the bakery round the corner She apparently frightened the life out of the woman who came to open up at the crack of dawn on the Tuesday morning.

Hope yours turns up soon. If you have any of her used litter, put it outside to help her smell her way home.

On the printing leaflets thing. Make sure you stick some around traffic lights in your area, you have a queues of people waiting in traffic who will see your leaflets more easily. Hope you get puss back soon.

Ours have been lost on several occasions. The longest was 4 days. We never knew where they had been as we never found them when we went looking. They would turn up at the house, very hungry. We suspect that they were locked in garages or sheds. Most times that they disappeared was in bad weather.
Hope she turns up soon. I know how worrying it is.

GOT HER! Safe and well.

Thank you everyone for your kind words and sharing your stories.

Well, @DesmondTheMoonbear wins the prize with the DIY suggestion. Our own bloody building work 🤦🏻‍♀️.

We are having the dormer roof redone. I did ask the builders as soon as they turned up this morning if there were any hidey holes she could have got into, and it was a firm No, not possible.

It was only when they took their lunch break that ds heard meowing coming through his bedroom wall/ceiling, that I grabbed a builder and we climbed up the scaffolding to look, and then I could hear her too.

I cannot quite believe she got into that space. Firstly, it’s a tiny squeeze space - I can totally see why the builders would not have seen it as a hidey hole. Also it is very, very high up! I don’t know HOW she got on the roof in the first place. (As for why...) The scaffolding had its ladder removed for the evening. There are no boards till the first floor. She was at second floor level. In a teeny tiny gap.

She is also old and a bit arthritic and dislikes even jumping up onto tables these days, let alone scaling scaffolding/roofs.

Unbelievable. The Ways of the Cat are mysterious.

It was a monumental exercise to extract her, involving several Lick-E-Lix, two builders and me spread eagled across the roof (health and safety look away now...), and the disassembling of a brand new dormer roof.

She was very hungry and is most upset about the indignity of the extraction process, but is otherwise completely fine.

I am SO SO relieved. She is talking a lot (complaints) and giving my the evil eye. My god I love her furry idiotic bones.

HURRAY! Happy ending. Awesome!

I'm so relieved that she's home. She's such a beautiful girl. Hopefully she's had enough of adventures now. The cat I mentioned that I found under a neighbour's floorboards was shy and not prone to exploring or wandering so I was just as surprised as you are now, that she ventured into our neighbour's home. Who knows what goes through their little furry heads?