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Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Original poster

Missing cat - keeping the faith

40 replies

TheGoblinQueenoftheLabyrinth · 19/10/2019 12:44

My lovely boy has been missing for about 24 hours now. He’s and outdoor boy who loves his adventures but he’s always in and out every couple of hours or so and I’ve always made sure he’s in overnight. He popped in yesterday at around 2pm and then back out and I haven’t seen him since. He’s a year old, I’ve had him since he was 7 weeks due to his mother rejecting her litter so I’m very attached to him.

I’ve done all the usual stuff and I’m aware that I’m being a bit of a wet wipe as it’s only been 24 hours.

Please share your stories of a time your cat sodded off for an eternity only to wander in days later bold as brass. Basically help me keep the faith.

Missing cat - keeping the faith
OP posts:
Sparklingbrook · 19/10/2019 12:53

Neighbour's cat missing for 3 days. Came back hungry and a bit grubby but probably got shut in someone's shed/garage.

I spotted a cat roaming about outside and took it to the vets to look for a chip. Turned out it was missing from about 2 miles away and had been for 6 months.

Never give up. But I know that awful feeling. Going to the back door and just willing and hoping they are there.

IndigoBlue · 19/10/2019 18:59

Ours used to disappear for 24 hours every so often. The longest he was gone was for over 2 years! After we moved house he must've got lost not knowing the area well but we still got him back eventually because he was chipped

chocolatespiders · 19/10/2019 19:01

You may have done this, it is what I did when my cat missing. Empty contents of Hoover into a box in garden to give off house smell.
Warm up tinned mackerel and leave outside and hope your cat smells it before another one does.

YobaOljazUwaque · 19/10/2019 19:09

Our little black and white cat aged about 3yrs went missing and was gone for 10 days. We did all the usual posters etc. We had given up hope when he just sauntered in one day. Shortly after, a neighbour popped round and said she'd just returned from holiday and had opened her shed and seen a streak of possibly cat moving faster than she could identify but wondered if our boy had turned up, having seen our posters all over the street. He must have got trapped in there the previous weekend. He was fine. Lived to the ripe old age of 18 after that adventure.

ToftheB · 19/10/2019 19:18

One of my cats came back through the cat flap this week after she'd been missing for 6 weeks. I can hardly believe it, it feels like she's back from the dead.
I hope your cat is home much sooner.

fishonabicycle · 19/10/2019 19:21

Send his details to your local cat's protection FB page so they can share for you.

Sparklingbrook · 19/10/2019 19:24

Also if your town has a FB Spotted page that will be shared with loads of people.

paddingtonbearsmarmalade · 19/10/2019 19:24

My old boy went missing for 4 or 5 days in the height of summer so we were really worried. Went out and searched for him, no sign. Put flyers through doors on our road and a few roads near us.

Got a call from a lovely older couple whose street backed onto the end of ours. They’d seen him drinking from their pond in the heat and were concerned. He didn’t have a collar (he lost them within days so no point) and wasn’t microchipped (Mum couldn’t bear the thought of it for some reason Hmm) so they had no way of knowing who he belonged to. They decided to keep him and call him... Norman.

We went round to pick him up and the little git sauntered over to us like it was our fault he’d disappeared over the fence at the end of the road! He was totally fine. We didn’t keep “Norman” as his name though...

honeybunlatte · 19/10/2019 19:47

My cat went missing for 10 days! She got lost and was found on the road adjacent to ours, a lady found her in her back garden and took her in as she looked a bit thin (and grumpy). She was about to take her to get her chip read when she saw a Facebook post I had posted on a local page for my area. Don't loose hope!
I posted on a local Facebook page, local Cats Protection shared a post for me on FB and I posted on the RSPCA FB page (they weren't very helpful when I messaged them though).

Lindy2 · 19/10/2019 19:53

A few list cat tips:

  • put the litter tray outside, the cat will hopefully be able to follow the scent home. A favourite blanket or dust from your vacuum cleaner will also have scent.
  • knock on neighbours' doors and ask them to check shed etc. Go with them to look if you can.
  • search late at night or early morning when it is quiet.
  • put up posters and list cat posts on Facebook.

I hope he comes home soon.

AnneElliott · 19/10/2019 20:48

Our little one went missing for a week. She turned up at a house 2 roads away and the family saw her in FB as a missing cat and got in touch.

TarquinGyrfalcon · 19/10/2019 20:56

Missing for six weeks - we'd searched and searched and finally given up hope.

I was literally on the phone dialling the number of our local animal rescue to make an enquiry about getting a new cat when I heard a tapping sound - he was on the kitchen windowsill tapping to get my attention.

TrainspottingWelsh · 19/10/2019 21:15

We had one years ago that frequently fucked off for weeks, occasionally months. Certainly wasn't being fed or pampered anywhere because he always came back skinny and scruffy and often crawling with fleas. We'd get reports he'd been spotted miles away over a large radius, but despite regular wild goose chases never managed to collect him. He'd simply come home himself and have a week of tlc, a few weeks or months round the place and then disappear again.

There's no way someone was taking him, we'd have noticed their blood. He wasn't one for getting in vehicles and we're rural so wasn't being scared off by vehicles or getting trapped anywhere. He simply liked to roam. Didn't stop us panicking every time though incase this time he didn't return. Eventually he died peacefully in his sleep at home as a very old boy.

StarlingsInSummer · 19/10/2019 21:17

The longest one of my cats ever went missing was 24 days! She came back all skinny, and did nothing but eat and sleep for a week. Don’t give up hope!

BeBraveAndBeKind · 20/10/2019 13:15

One of ours went for three weeks once. Turned up just over a mile away. We'd done posters, cat charities, local vets and reported him missing to the chip company. It was the chip that got him back to us.

Is he microchipped?

Original poster
TheGoblinQueenoftheLabyrinth · 22/10/2019 11:35

Thank you everyone, he is microchipped, I've reported him missing with the microchip company, the vets facebook posts, posters on lamp posts and fliers through doors. Litter tray has been out since Friday night and I've hung some worn clothes on the line hoping he'll catch a whiff and head home.

He's been gone for 4 days now, I'm just hoping he's curled up somewhere safe and isn't hungry or scared.

When he does come home he's going to be a house cat after this adventure!

OP posts:
RolytheRhino · 22/10/2019 11:45

Have you walked past everyone's garage and called his name? My numpty DCat hot herself stuck in ours a couple of times. I only realised because I heard her miaowing.

Original poster
TheGoblinQueenoftheLabyrinth · 22/10/2019 12:45

Yes, we have a lot of garages in our area, I've called outside all of them and waited to hear a meow and no luck.

I was concerned that someone had been feeding him so I reduced the time that I allowed him to wander about. I'm wondering if there's a family close by who thought he belonged to them and they hadn't seen him in a while. He's wandered their way on Friday and they've kept him in?

I'm not giving up hope yet, it's just horrible thinking about all of the possible scenarios.

OP posts:
Myimaginarycathasfleas · 22/10/2019 13:01

Our elderly and normally very home bound Siamese cat took exception to us having visitors and disappeared. We were distraught. We asked up and down the road and after a couple of days word came back that our next door neighbour-but-one had spotted her in their garden and noticed she hadn't moved. Sure enough, there she was. Turned out she had somehow got up over our stone wall and that of our neighbour's and, we think, couldn't get back again.

Apart from being a bit hungry and subdued for a bit, she was fine.

Hope your little fella turns up fit and well after his adventure.

RolytheRhino · 22/10/2019 13:20

Have you called all the local vets and rescues to see if a stray matching his description has turned up? Sometimes microchips fail. It is rare but does happen.

Fettfrett · 22/10/2019 13:25

We lost our boy for 5 days, I did flyers asking people to check sheds and garages after 3 days and 2 days later I had a call from a neighbour who had been away for a long weekend and came back to find him in her house - he'd gone in her back door while she was taking her her washing in before she left, and she'd gone straight in, locked the back door and left for her trip.

2 months later exactly the same thing happened again, same neighbour only this time she was only away for 2 nights and let him out when she came home.

I still have no idea whether it was really unlucky timing both times or if he regularly sneaks into her house and these were the only times he's got stuck.

InOtterNews · 22/10/2019 14:33

Mine can go walkabout for a week at a time. The first (and 2nd) time I reported him missing. I no longer bother reporting him missing. He still does it now mainly in summer months - he rocks up when he's ready none the worse forward - though hungry and little bedraggled. He looks like he returning from a lads holiday and just sleeps it off before doing it again.

ifonly4 · 22/10/2019 15:24

As well as asking people to check garages/sheds, also ask them to check their gardens, as my neighbour found an ill cat under a bush last year. If you've got a local supermarket, put a poster up in there (cat went missing down our road in August, someone five miles away had seen the poster and saw the cat near her home).

KanelbulleKing · 22/10/2019 15:28

My male cat went missing for 7 days in the height of summer. I thought he'd died because if he were trapped somewhere with no water he never survive the heat. Strolled in happy as Larry without a by your leave. The bugger.

Then last year my female cat went missing for 12 weeks. Came back looking like an extra from the Walking Dead. No idea where she'd been but she was well happy to be home.

LL83 · 22/10/2019 15:37

My cats both went missing for 24-48 hours more that once.

Worst time my cat was missing for 8 weeks. I went to meet a friend at local restaurant for lunch and he came running out of the nearby woods! I guess he wandered a little to far and got lost but he was resourceful enough to survive. Restaurant staff said he had been around there for a couple of weeks.

Hope your cat is home soon.