Where do cats go missing for a whole month?

[woodenchairs]

Cat disappeared in suburb of city. Under a year old, chipped and spayed. Been happily using a cat flap. Happy at home and then one morning didn’t come in for breakfast.

She returned with no injuries but was very thin and looking a bit ragged literally a month to the day that she went missing.

What are your theories?

My cat does this quite regularly, especially when the weather's good, she hasn't been gone for a month but 1-2 weeks at a time, 3 once. I think it's to do with other cats, we had another cat start trying to get into the house just before she ran off the first time and one of the other times I saw her being chased by a neighbours cat then she disappeared for a couple of weeks

Sorry you said where, no idea 🤣

May have got trapped somewhere, but it's a common time of year for cats to roam and wander because it's baby bird season and easy hunting

Need a go pro on her . If I had a cat I would put a tracker on her collar

Locked somewhere otherwise hunger would have returned her.

Shut in a garage or shed or building site

We think that ours took a different route to usual via some neighbours scaffolding, that then came down the next day leaving him trapped, and he was only at the bottom of the street but it took him annoying someone enough to inspect his tag for them to call us to collect him.

Can they live like that for a month?

can they survive like that for a month?

We had a cat that vanished for 7 months. When we did eventually get him back, he was well fed. He was a bit grubby, but other than that he was fine.
He was living near a McDonalds and people were feeding him there.

we had our cat from a few months old. When he was 5 he disappeared for 5 years (he was chipped) and he turned up 6 years ago and has been back with us ever since.

I think, when they initially get stuck (eg in a shed) or lost (chased away from familiar scents in locality by another animal, for instance, or followed the trail of some prey) then, if they're away long enough, they may sort of reset, or get used to being 'gone'.

Basically, I think most cats don't care about us! We're convenient and sure, they'll have some snuggles with us, but equally that nice old lady over the road has a comfy lap, too. Food is food, but we are not the only source of food, and once they work out that they can scrounge, hunt or steal elsewhere, what's keeping them?

(sorry if I come across as embittered. We recently lost our cat for a week, managed to find him about a kilometre away from home, very much outside his territory (OR SO WE THOUGHT) and he wasn't even much reduced in weight. He seemed fine and had obviously been hunting and found water to drink. We kept him in a week then put a tracker collar on him and now have the most nerve-wracking time seeing just how much he roams, the little bugger!

One of ours frequently disappears for long periods over the summer. Often he is scrounging off a neighbour (we repeatedly ask the neighbour not to feed him obviously!) Another time he must have been trapped somewhere as he returned thin and fearful 😕

I used to live in a small hamlet. A neighbouring woman had been searching for her female cat for days/weeks on end. The latter little terror had been frolicking in my big garden for weeks with her boyfriend. Presumable she / they were catching their meals there too. They weren't losing weight and cared less about their owners.

I think many cats have second/third homes. My current cat used to go off for hours/days at a time, spotted half a mile away and wasn't at all hungry when he deigned to return. Embarrassingly he also ate next door's salmon, left on the kitchen table. Also nearly gave them a heart attack by leaping through their bedroom window onto their bed at night.

We had a non neutered tom when I was little. He roamed the neighbourhood, went off for days, fought and yowled through the nights, came back happy as Larry.

My sister's cat used to fight the Alsatian next door at night. Learnt how to open their fridge etc.

Next door's cat was very snooty until the day they were late coming home when he suddenly became very friendly, purring and cuddling up. The moment they were back he was snooty again.

So has your current cat calmed down, in terms of roaming? I ask, because you said 'used to'. I'm really hoping that my wicked boy will get this out of his system and calm the feck down when he's older. He's currently 2 and only shows signs of getting wilder and bolder. He's tiny, pretty and honestly doesn't look the type to maraud and live off the land!

There was a really interesting documentary a couple of years ago on Channel 4 I think it was where they put cameras on several cats to track what they did during the day for their owners to then watch. It was so funny and fascinating as it transpired that several of the cats actually had part time owners in some sort of weird informal time-share. Unbeknown to the true owners, some of the cats would casually pop off down the road (or even further afield) to other people's homes, cafes, schools, cul-de-sacs to play with other cats, offices etc where they were being petted and fed and they returned back home (if and when they felt like it). It just reaffirmed that saying "you don't own a cat, they own you". 😊