We moved nearly a year ago to a house about 2 miles from our old home. Our 4 year old tabby seemed to have settled in well in the new house.
However in January we had an unexpected and long hospital stay for our 3yo DD. We were at GOSH and so far from home, family checked on our 2 cats daily. During this time our Tabby disappeared and our old neighbours told us he had shown up at the old house.
He has now repeated this trip about 8 or 9 times. We tried keeping him in again for about 3 weeks but it was hellish, he peed all over the house (he is completely house trained), scratched the living daylights out of our patio doors and cat flap and yowled day and night to he let out. The minute we let him out he had gone back to the old house.
We bought a GPS collar to help us pick him up easier and it's clear he is purposefully walking the same route each time but he never makes the return journey.
Before we got the collar he was once gone for around a week as everytime we went to get him he was nowhere to be seen. When we finally brought him home he didn't seem hungry at all.
My opinion is that he doesn't want to live here/ with us. When we left our old house a lady saw him in our garden and said that he often came into her house for cuddles/food etc and she'd always wondered where he lived - we had no idea! I think he's been welcomed back into one of his seven dinner sid houses and is happy there. We tried a paper note on his collar asking people to contact us if they were feeding him but no response.
My husband adores him and is so upset about the situation. He has to cross a major road on his journey and I've said I'd rather he lived a happy life with someone else than ended up dead on an A road. To fit a catio that won't look god awful will cost us thousands and what if he just wants to escape that??
He's over there again right now but the battery on his tracker has died while we tried to catch him. Husband spent nearly 3 hours searching people's gardens etc last night but the goodwill of our old neighbours and new owners is running out! He saw him multiple times but he ran away.
I know we technically "own" him but at this point I feel like we keep nicking someone's cat! What on earth should we do??