There is a cat in my garden. Is it lost?

[lowhangingbranch]

There is a healthy, glossy coated, collared cat sitting contentedly in my garden. Is it lost?

I am a follower of several facebook sites for local villages/ communities. In the past couple of years I have noticed a large number of posts like this. Someone will take a photo of a healthy looking, glossy coated cat, often with a collar sitting in a relaxed pose in their garden and ask if it is lost. Sometimes they will say 'the cat looks thin' but the photo shows a normal, healthy cat that definitely does not look thin. Invariably someone will reply to say the cat is not lost but is mine/ belongs to Mrs Miggins at No. 5 and just likes to wander in the neighbourhood. As cats do.

The other day there was an upgrade on this theme when someone posted a photo of a dog saying it was lost so they took it home, only to receive several angry replies from the owner saying that is their dog and it likes sitting on the end of the drive and was not lost, and they wanted their dog back.

Is this just a thing local to me? Or is it a nationwide trend for people to be desperate to find lost animals and so seeing them everywhere, even though there is nothing to indicate the animal is lost?

We get this pretty much every day on my local Nextdoor - in both directions. So hundreds of "looks lost" posts when people just happen to see a cat outside, and loads of "my cat's been missing for 20 minutes, oh no, it's home now" type posts. I think there should be a law that says you can't post about a cat on social media unless the situation is unchanged for at least 24 hours!

Someone did try to steal our cats! We kept going round to pick them up (one was missing for over a fortnight, posters put round the local area etc.) and still she persisted in feeding them and trapping them. The only thing that stopped her was my teen daughter tearfully asking for her cat back. I get that cats are contrary buggers and can decide to move house, but she was definitely encouraging them. Apparently she had encouraged other cats away from their owners in the past - we found that out afterwards. They seem to have decided to stay at home with us for now.

I think we must be neighbours!

The number of posts I read about healthy, friendly, content cats who are catting around doing what cats do is ridiculous. Some even have a clear collar and tag on but because they are outside and happily sheltering in the rain, people are concerned they have become a stray or are lost.

Our ginger cat was forever being lured in by the neighbour across the road, who didn't want a cat of his own because he went away a lot, but still liked feline company. We went over whenever we saw our cat sitting in the window and demanded his return. What finally stopped the feline catnapping was the threats made by two thoroughly fearsome ladies, Lil and Kim, who had agreed to feed our three cats during our holidays. 'While we are in charge of that cat,' they said, 'you will NOT feed him or encourage him in. Do-you-UNDERSTAND?' Yes, he really did: he was so terrified of them our cat was never invited in again...

A friend had a vet ring her. Her healthy cat had been taken to the vet by a man saying it looked ill and lost. It was chipped so the vet could contact the owner. The cat is 15 years old and healthy. Ridiculous.

The one I read last year on Next Door beat the lot!

‘Has anyone lost a cat? I found this one wandering the street outside my house and have brought it in for safety.’

Luckily lots of replies pointed out that the owners probably hadn’t lost their cat, until it became incarcerated in the poster’s house!

My neighbour has a gorgeous, very entitled cat who just wanders into my house uninvited and makes himself at home. We've found him asleep on top of wardrobes and the sofa and our beds.

We've seen him hanging around with groups of lads like he's one of the gang and hanging around with kids on the street.

We never feed him when he comes in even though hes very good at sounding pitiful and trying to look pathetic because he looks very healthy and well cared for and is very rotund!

There was a post once on FB with a photo of him in a cage asking if anyone knew the owners of a lost cat they'd found wandering about. He was safe with them and they'd trapped him.
Half the estate and his owners replied saying he's not lost he was on his own street and was just going for a walk! His owners had to go and pick him up.

The cat's outraged face looking out of the cage makes me laugh every time I think about it. He was absolutely fuming 😆🤣

@RightOnTheEdge brilliant ❤️🤣❤️🤣

@RightOnTheEdge They took a happily wandering cat off the streets and put him in a cage where he was safe? How can people be so fucking clueless! I bet the cat was incandescent with rage poor thing! 😱😂🐈‍⬛

God, we get this all the time and it drives me mad. And the all the people replying going "can you catch it and take it to the nearest vet" "I'll tag catladycathy and she'll come and scan for a chip".

There's a cat near us that likes to hang about outside the local shops. Despite numerous please from the owner, people keep feeding it, coaxing it in to their cars etc. Apparently her kids asked someone not to feed it the other day when they saw someone doing it and got swore at!

Someone new to our village recently posted their concerns about a cat who lives round the corner, saying should they take it to the vet, was it a stray?

This cat lives very close to our primary school. He sits outside on the pavement outside his house in all weathers so he can be fussed by all the kids on the school run and looks a bit sad in the school holidays. He's the healthiest cat you've ever seen and he's lived there for at least a decade.

The replies from the cat's owners and everyone else who lives round here were like what on earth are you on about? Leave that cat alone!

Sounds like the cat is ok and has an owner but please report back if you are concerned.

We had a crazy one a couple of weeks ago. Daughter’s boyfriend was staying overnight at ours. He lives with his mum so cat definitely not abandoned. He received an email from a vet 10 miles away saying his cat had been handed in as people thought it was a stray.

This is a perfectly healthy and thankfully microchipped pet.

Daughter’s boyfriend does not drive. Had my husband not been working from home and therefore able to help it would have meant an expensive taxi round trip to collect puss .

Even if you thought a cat was a stray, why on earth drive it so far away?

Definitely not just you. Never ceases to amaze me that people - who presumably like cats and know a little bit about their nature - don't seem to realise that cats like to wander.

How does a (well-fed) cat "look lost" anyway? I'm yet to see one pawing frustratedly through an A-Z.

Um...😂

Hahaha! 😂

Although if those cats are anything like mine they're not actually lost, just plotting their next adventure.

Ooo good point. Actually I think the older one is plotting world domination. His name must be Vladimir Purrtin.