Missing cat

[SoMuchWaiting]

Does anyone have any tips to help find a missing cat?

Our boy was last seen on Friday evening, he ate the food which was put out for him over Friday night but wasn't seen Saturday morning and hadn't been home to eat or been home at all since. I'm worried sick.

He isn't a wanderer. He always comes home within a minute of calling him from the back door.

We have put a message and picture on the local Facebook page. We have put him on animalsearch.co.uk. I have been door to door on a lot of houses asking people to check their sheds.
My DH has been on a walk all round the local area calling him which he will repeat before work tomorrow. We have also put his litter tray outside but unfortunately it's pretty clean, we changed it the day before going away and he rarely uses it, he goes outside most of the time. Does anyone else have any other ideas of what we could do?
I'm planning on having flyers made in the morning and also plan to call round local vets. He is microchipped so if he'd been taken to a vet I'd presume I'd have had a phone call by now. My dh is currently doing some sort of registration for an alert through his microchip website as we have paid for the 'premium' service.

Any tips would be appreciated, we're really missing him!
I feel like it's my fault. We were away from Friday morning and the cat sitter saw him Friday night and has been in constant contact since she discovered he hadn't eaten his Saturday morning food. We only got back a few hours ago so we're a good 24 hours behind with our search. I should have locked him in but he loves it outside and we were only away for two nights. He has a microchip cat flap so has easy access to the house.

You're doing everything you can, he sounds a much loved boy.

I would ask to check neighbours sheds.

Thank you, he is very much loved.

Last time we went away and my parents (who he knows really well) came with us so couldn't cat sit we used a cattery and it was awful. After 7 days he looked so uncared for and he had been left with his cat carrier in the cage/room with him, the small cushion/padding from his cat carrier was covered in sick and diarrhoea, it's gone crusty so wasn't at all fresh. I said never again. We were going to lock him in but as it's only two days we thought he'd be fine. If we ever get him back I don't think I'll ever leave him again!

All the doors I've managed to knock on have checked their sheds for me or let me do it.

He's home! He just wandered in, dh slept downstairs so if he came in he'd instantly know we were back. He appears fine. Phew!

Thank you to all who read my post and especially fluffy for replying

Just saw this now. So genuinely glad.

I believe you owe us a cat picture!

Oh that's excellent. That cattery sounds awful, the one we use would never let a cat get into that state.

Glad it had a happy ending. We shut ours in when we go away, my reasoning being that the downstairs space is still larger than they would get in a cattery and they are on home turf. Dboycat can also be a bit selective about who lets him in. They never seem the worse for it.

Shouldwestay that was what I was thinking too, dh who has had cats all his life convinced me that he'd be fine with his cat flap open and he'd probably not even know we were away. He'll be locked inside next time. The cat sitter said that too, she'll only look after him if we don't leave the cat flap open. Apparently she's never had a cat go wandering before.

Atherney here you go, our handsome baby boy...

Just noticed that he has a collar on on the picture. Please don't slate me. They're the easy snap off ones and they do snap off easily, on occasion he has been through two in a day but then other times he has one on for months at a time. I'm worried that someone who isn't educated about cats may take him in/feed him if he hasn't got a collar on. He has allergies too, nothing too bad but if he has normal cat food he comes out in lumps under his skin so I think there's less chance of someone feeding him if he has a collar on.

Also, his collar gives the local wildlife a fighting chance. He has been known to bring home live, bleeding pidgins and magpies which are so big I have no idea how he gets them through the cat flap. One week it was three in a week bleeding and flapping around my house. I think this figure could be higher without his bell on.

He is gorgeous! I want to bury my face in his floof!

That's a black panther surely? Look at those cheek pouches! 😻

Haha fluffy that's how I described him to the neighbours yesterday. There is another black cat on the street but the other one is quite small. I was showing a picture and explaining that ours looks like a miniature panther. He's big for a cat and has a really long thick tail.