Have you ever found your pet?

[MermaidsTears]

Just trying to cheer myself up as very over due and miserable.
I see posts on facebook alot of people finding animals and some have ended up keeping them when no chip was found and no owner came forward after local vets being notified etc they are allowed to keep them after a certain period of time. 2 weeks I believe?
Also hear of people finding a kitten or a puppy in a bin/shed/bush etc
Has this ever happened to any of you?
And a happy ever after with an unexpected pet added to your family?

Our old cat who died in February was found dumped in a neighbour's garden at only about six weeks old

He found a loving, happy home with us.

My neighbour had a poor, abandoned, starving cat show up at her door begging for food and warmth. I have tried explaining several times that he's our cat, he's extremely well fed (rather rotund in fact), very loved, never shut out of the house, and just a greedy bugger who's playing her for a sap. Don't think she quite believes me.

Every cat we have had was a stray they just pull up outside the door and park their bums , we are presently on cat number 7 !

My parents last cat was found at my DFs place of work. He was too young to have been away from his mother and had been in accident as he had a pronounced limp (vet said it was an injury that had happened not long after birth but was now as stable as it was going to get.) He was experiencing low level abuse from a group of neanderthal teenagers but it was escalating to a point where they were beginning to think of causing serious harm/death and was in a sorry state with the worst case of squits I have ever seen.
My dad roared at them and they scattered like cockroaches because they didn't want to lose their jobs.

He came home and a few weeks later fell awkwardly while playing and reinjured himself. After some rest and recuperation he was a different animal. Whatever he had done to himself had completely fixed his previous issues and he walked and ran with no limp. He would run flat out everywhere, that fast that when cornering his back end would overtake the front. His best friend was the cat next door who used to call for him every morning and they would go out and play all day.
He was the friendliest cat I have known and even as an adult would still at times settle down and suck on your clothes when getting cuddles.
He died at the age of 12 of congestive heart failure.

When I was a child we found a tortoise who had 'run' away and turned up in our front garden. Thinking it must belong to a neighbour we knocked on all the doors in the street, and put signs up in local shops and vets but couldn't find an owner so we looked after him until he ran away again about a decade later

We found a budgie when I was a toddler. It was the day after a big storm. I was walking home with my mum from nursery, and she was pointing things out to me on the way, as you do with small children. She pointed and said, 'Look at the pretty birdie!'. Then stopped and thought 'Wait, that isn't the sort of bird that's meant to be out in the wild.' Somehow she managed to catch it and brought it home. We put up a notice in the newsagents window but no one claimed it, so we kept it. Its official name was Concorde (because its beak was a little wonky) but in my infinite toddler wisdom I christened it 'Budgie', which is what it learned to say. I was also convinced it was a boy (it wasn't), so it also learned to mumble the word 'Boy'.

Most bad tempered bird I've ever met, but well loved regardless. It died at the age of about 9, which is pretty good innings for a budgie.

Yep, my mum still has the cat that my sister found as a tiny (dumped in the woods) kitten 18 years ago. We also had a dog in the past, that the owner never came forward for and a pet rat that was thrown down an embankment in a cage! All have been loved and cared for by my family.

Currently housing two stray dogs that were found wandering outside this evening. One has a collar but the the guy on the phone said he sold the dog 10months ago. The other doesn't have a tag. No vets will take them in and dog warden advised we let them go. Dh is too much of a softy though and won't do it. One may be pregnant or recently has pups.
So if anyone wants a spaniel pm me.

My beautiful cat (well, DH's really) went missing in September last year.

I hope, every day, someone finds him and takes him to a vet to get his chip checked

😢😢😢😢😢

When I was quite small, my parents found an injured cat in the garden and took her to the vets to have her paw fixed. She stayed with us until it was completely healed, paid her debt by fixing my parents mouse problem then moved on.

We think she was probably never really a pet, though, but a feral cat that only came near a house because she was injured and couldn't hunt.

Found 2 of our cats in our garden. People seem to think it is OK t abandon unwanted pets in the forest at the end of the lane and assume they will eat mice etc. This may work in the summer but what happens to these abandoned pets in the winter when the ground is covered by snow and ice and temperatures get down to minus 30C

The first cat we found was at Christmas 2009 and was aged at 4. The children went out into the garden and came running in saying they had found a dying cat - and her really was dying, He is the cat nearest to death that I have ever seen. He was literally skin and bone, his fur was straw-like and he was too weak to stand up. They carried him in but it is clear that it would be touch and go whether he made it. We placed him in the cupboard under the stairs with warm blankets, food water and a small litter tray. This was to give him quiet from the other cats we had. For a week he just lay in the blankets and stared into space - we were not sure he would make it. He only stood (wobbly) to go to the litter tray and then laid down again. We were worried and booked him a vet appointment - however on day 6 he trotted out of the cupboard never to look back. He shed all of his fur and grew a soft fluffy coat. He seems to have a little brain damage/dementia but he manages in the house and garden but behaves like a kitten.

Then at Christmas 2015 we saw a kitten (who walked in a really strange way) eating bird food from our bird feeders and trying to eat snow. We eventually discovered that the strange walking was lack of body fat and trying to walk hunched over to maintain body warmth. She was living under an empty barn in blizzard season, DD spent hours sitting out in minus 25 trying to entice her out but with little success as she was too nervous. We borrowed a cat trap from a shelter but she didn't weigh enough to trigger it so DD threw dry food in and slammed it behind her. So she moved in and never moved out. The vet put her at 8-10 months and she'd probably been abandoned at 5-6 months

When I was about 9 years old,my hamster escaped...we turned the house inside out but couldn't find her,I was heartbroken.Then 5 days later my father went to the garage(short distance from the house),lifted up the door and there she was just sitting there in the middle of the floor looking at him!She got scooped up and put back in her cage.I like to think she was partying with the mice in the garage

@sunshineunicorn Please contact springer rescue (they're springers, I guess, as they are regularly nicked then escape or are abandoned) I'll find a website for you.

My parents have a parrot found in a forest. He was in a complete mess and was when we had storm Doris.

Advertised everywhere but no one ever claimed him.

He's a noisy bugger and just screeches horrifically most of the time but he does talk. We joke that they must have let him out on purpose.

www.springerrescue.org.uk

www.englishspringerrescue.co.uk

www.essw.co.uk

www.justspringersrescue.co.uk

Try any of these, @sunshineunicorn if you haven't already.

A friend lost his dog whilst at a picnic in North London (he lives South) - lots of friends looked for hours but couldn't find him and they had to go home without the dog. A few years later he got a call from a South London vets saying that their (microchipped) dog had been handed in as a stray. No one has a clue where the dog was for those (3 or 4) years, but they got their dog back!

Oops, miss-read the OP!

But, my first cat was found, a tiny ginger kitten that was abandoned (he had an even tinier brother who sadly died). He lived a very long and happy life with us.

A year and 4 days ago (thanks fb timehop) a pigeon found us.

He is still here now. Has his own coop and comes to call. He is called Kez.

flippychick - maybe we found your tortoise or you found ours as we have an eerily similar tale. Has cheered me up to think of Torty planning his/ her next escape 30 years on ....

I also had a found cat. As a child I longed for a cat and we had a feral one living in our garden but he was very wild and shy. Then one winter after a particularly difficult time in my life he needed some help and over the course of a few weeks I fed him, gave him a little box to live in and eventually gained his trust enough for him to move in with us. It meant a lot to me at the time and I loved him sooo much.

My mum found stole one of our cats when we were kids. Our next door neighbours kept leaving outside her for weeks at a time with no food or water, and when they were at home their toddler terrorised her. She moved into our shed to hide from them and get shelter in the winter. My mum told the neighbours quite bluntly she was taking the cat in as they weren't looking after her... Shock of the year, neighbours did not give a shiny cat shit. Took weeks of my mum putting food in the shed, and then each day moving the bowl a little bit closer to the house. She was a lovely cat, quite glad my mum was a catknapper!

2 little black cats in a row just pitched up and moved in with me. The original one meowed outside until we gave in and let her in. She stayed with my mum after I left home and lived a good 15 years! She was very loved but dragged baby rabbits and mice indoors every day and killed anything that moved!

We found a white rabbit in a country park and worried about it so much we carried it home. I took it to the vet who said it wouldn't have survived the night with foxes and whatnot so must have been dumped that day. He lived with us and terrorised the cats he was very funny.

Thank you ginger we have managed to locate the owner after someone very kindly offered to come out and check for a microchip. Apparently it's not the first time they have been "lost"

My first cat officially lived next door when I was a student. I used to cuddle her when I saw her, then I realised after a while she was waiting for me. She'd meet me partway down the road, follow me home and ask to come in. I used to sneak her in (no pets allowed) then put her out again when I went to bed. One night I woke up to find she'd come n through an open window, I had a ground floor room, and was asleep on my feet. Some weeks later someone I'd never spoken to from a flat next door commented on how pleased they were as they thought she'd been really neglected by her previous owner. She was a loving and beautiful cat for all the years I had her.

Our most recent cat was found hiding in a friend's cellar. She was emaciated, you could see every bone through her skin. She is the sweetest thing, it took four months for her diarrhoea to clear up. The vet reckoned she was spayed.
She is now healthy and happy, and last week gave birth to five kittens! We are getting her spayed asap.

Throughout my childhood my Df (who swears he dislikes cats) brought strays home. Of the 15 cats we had throughout the years, 9 were rescues.