Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Please share your 'lost pet coming home' stories.

64 replies

TravellingSpoon · 28/02/2022 09:37

Our cat is missing. She never goes very far and hardly ever goes out. She went out yesterday at 4pm and hasnt been back since. I know that doesn't sound like a lot but she is usually out for 5 minutes and back, she doesn't go out at night.

DD is distraught and nothing I can say can make it better. Please share your positive stories to cheer me up.

OP posts:
givemushypeasachance · 28/02/2022 12:47

One of my cats went missing a few years ago - the first nice sunny day of the year, he just didn't come back home. He'd stay out for up to 24 hours sometimes but when he still didn’t come back I presumed he was stuck somewhere or had been hurt. He was shy, would probably go into another house to steal food but wouldn’t befriend anyone else since he’d hide under the bed if I had visitors round! I put posters up and posts on the local lost pet Facebook and all sort. He’s an all-black cat so I did get a few reports, but they turned out to not be him. Three weeks passed and I assumed he wasn’t coming back, then he just came in the cat flap and started chowing down on a bowl of biscuits. He’d been overweight and was now much skinnier, so I think he must have been stuck somewhere, whether a shed or a house with people on holiday or something. Don’t know how he made it three weeks without water – he must have been drinking something. He’s about nine years old now, much more of a homebody.

A friends cat also disappeared and turned up again. They lived in a terraced street and she only went in the back garden and one or two gardens over, didn’t spend more than a few hours out of their house. Just disappeared one day. She was a neutered rescue cat with only a few teeth left – not a likely cat-napping target! My friend theorised someone had moved house and taken her with them. About nine months later a vets several miles away called her, saying someone had found her hanging around in a supermarket car park. She’d actually put weight on, so had definitely been being fed. It was baffling! She’s still going, a little old lady cat now.

ImInStealthMode · 28/02/2022 12:51

My daft (largely indoor) cat got out of a window, onto a flat roof and away not long after we'd moved. We suspect he fell rather than deliberately making a run for it; he's never done it again.

He was gone for 9 weeks before casually re-appearing, as right as rain.

Never give up hope x

pawpaws2022 · 28/02/2022 12:56

My cat went missing for 8 days, he's usually a proper soppy attached to me boy
He wouldn't go out for weeks after he came back

jarviscockatiel · 28/02/2022 12:59

Our cockatiel flew away last year. We put messages on lots of Facebook sites and 3 days later he was found more than 13 miles from home in a different county. Hope you get a similar result

Original poster
TravellingSpoon · 28/02/2022 13:06

Thank you everyone, these are really helping me feel a bit more confident. I've put her picfure on our local village group and will have a look at Next-door.

Will do some flyers this evening if she is not home by then.

OP posts:
Sparklingbrook · 28/02/2022 13:09

@TravellingSpoon

Thank you everyone, these are really helping me feel a bit more confident. I've put her picfure on our local village group and will have a look at Next-door.

Will do some flyers this evening if she is not home by then.

Put on the flyers for everyone to look in their sheds/garages. Also if the cat has any identifying colouring or markings that differentiate her from other similar cats that's useful for people to know. Tell the postman, and if you can get some laminated ones up by the post box/on lamp posts. Just remember to take them down when she's back.
Original poster
TravellingSpoon · 28/02/2022 19:47

Thank you, we have done all the things you have recommended.

Will try and catch the post lady tomorrow.

OP posts:
thecatsthecats · 28/02/2022 20:50

Our old boy went BBQ surfing one hot summer (he liked to lick the grill so we had to be uber careful with ours). It was scorching hot, drought conditions, and he was seventeen, so we didn’t hold out much hope.

Four days later, a woman called up regarding our poster campaign because he had had enough and wanted to be brought home. And was telling her so LOUDLY.

VerbenaGirl · 28/02/2022 20:56

We lost a hamster for two weeks and we’re pretty confident we’d never see her again. Then in the early hours of the morning my DH was in the kitchen getting a snack and she just ran up to him. She was thin and had sore feet, but soon recovered.

MintyFreshBreath · 28/02/2022 21:08

Not mine, my mum’s. She inherited two cats after my grandpa died so they were really precious to her. One of them in particular was so independent and everyday would go out for a walk, until one day he didn’t return. Mum was really upset but then 6 months later he strolled in through the patio doors bold as brass as if he’d been gone for 5 minutes! A week or so later she saw the cat being fed by someone literally two streets over. She told the guy it was her cat and the man responded with ‘he comes here everyday and I call him Big Boy’. He was ginormous to be fair 😆

modgepodge · 28/02/2022 21:13

A friend of mine got her cat about 9 years after it went missing!!!! I can’t remember all the details but she got a call one day about him, couldn’t bear to call herself and hear he was dead (though she’d obviously assumed that was the case) and asked me to call for her…cat was still alive! she went to collect it and it lived with her again 🙂

Hope yours is back sooner than this though…

Wizzbangfizz · 28/02/2022 21:22

Ours was missing for a week we were all utterly distraught - leafleted the area and got lucky when someone found him in their garden. Never been so relieved 😌 hope you her back OP.

I also know of two cats - both Siamese who went missing for months and both were found (diff families cats). There is hope.

user1471538283 · 28/02/2022 21:44

It is such a worry. DBoycat had form for going missing when he was younger. We found him through lost and found pets in facebook. He was 3 houses over!

DGirlcat has done it 3 times. She was first missing for 48 hours and I was frantic. I posted everywhere, letterboxed flyers, put her litter out, hung up some bed linen. She just walked in. She then left 6 hours later and then returned after 12 hours. Most recently she was gone for 21 hours and I was beside myself.

Try and give out when its quieter, look very low and high. She is probably quite close by. I hope she is soon home.

ohCARP · 28/02/2022 21:47

Mine was lost for 3 years. We thought she had died then got a call from the vet out of the blue saying they'd found her and could we collect her. She's been back 5 years and is asleep on my feet now 😊

Fantina · 28/02/2022 22:27

Our cat went missing for six weeks, he came back one scorching summer day absolutely drenched. We thought he’d had a bucket of water chucked over him but he would neither confirm or deny.

fairylightsandwaxmelts · 01/03/2022 08:17

My indoor-only cat escaped out of our back door during storm Arwen and disappeared for three days.

We found her in a neighbours garden - I had to poke her out of a bush with a stick Grin

Original poster
TravellingSpoon · 01/03/2022 22:42

She limped on about 4pm today, she has a gash on her back leg and a scratch on her nose, took her to the animal OOH to be checked over and she is okay.

DD is thrilled and DV is currently curled up with DD in bed, both fast asleep.

OP posts:
Original poster
TravellingSpoon · 01/03/2022 22:43

DCat, not DV

OP posts:
MistySkiesAfterRain · 01/03/2022 22:57

Oh fab. Ours was found alive and well six years later when the woman who took her in finally took her to the vet and they scanned her microchip.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 02/03/2022 00:01

So pleased OP, phew!

MrsPsmalls · 02/03/2022 00:49

Amazing news! Very happy for you all

TonyThreePies · 02/03/2022 01:20

Such a happy outcome, glad to read your update OP Flowers

mowly77 · 02/03/2022 01:30

Lovely to read your cat came home! Flowers One of mine disappeared a few years ago; very unlike her and I was frantic, putting up flyers, searching the streets morning and evenings, calling for her, putting out bedding, litter, the hoover’s contents etc.

She went missing on the first bright spring day that year when everyone was out and about in gardens with sheds open etc - and came back - when I had given up all hope - 11 days later; skinny; starving; dehydrated; and she smelled musty. I’m positive she got stuck in a shed or garage but I’ll never know! Hasn’t gone walkies for 4 years now so hopefully she’s learned a lesson …

Wizzbangfizz · 02/03/2022 08:03

Relieved for you OP Thanks

BringBackCoffeeCreams · 02/03/2022 08:09

I have 2. One went missing for 2 weeks. I then got a phone call from a nearby care home saying they thought he was trapped in an internal courtyard there. I went round and sure enough he was hiding in the undergrowth, scared out of his wits.

The other one stropped off in annoyance at us getting a new cat, realised which side her bread was buttered on but then couldn't find her way home. She turned up 12 weeks later looking like an extra from The Walking Dead, and is now fully recovered.