What's the longest your cat has gone missing for?

[rainyrainstormy]

I've been out tonight to help my friend look for her cat who didn't come home last night. The cat is a bit of a homebody so this is pretty unusual.

My friend is so upset and imagining the worst. I don't have cats now but when I was a kid we had two and I remember the awful feelings when either of them disappeared for a few days. The longest was 3 days and just when we'd given up hope, he waltzed in the door and headed straight for his water like nothing had even happened!

But just wondering if your cat has ever gone missing for a day or more and what's the longest time they've been away?

My mum’s cat was once gone for 6 weeks. She just randomly came home one day, thin but otherwise well

I think 4.
Advice we had was to leave the litter tray outside (if they have one) and hang the blanket outside. I think she must have been stuck in a shed or something.

5 days, which was very out of character. I don’t know what the hell he’d been doing but got a text from someone about half a mile away in response to posters I put up. Didn’t look any thinner than usual so he must have got food from somewhere.

A previous cat disappeared for 3 days ish a few times. I remember a childhood cat doing similar.

Two days the current ones.

About a week the ones before that. Pretty sure someone else was feeding him.

AirTags are a marvellous invention.

My best friends Maine Coone, who was always an indoor cat, got out a few years ago. 13 MONTHS later, the little sod came back. He was well groomed and seemed fine so we can only assume someone gave him a home for that time. But bloody hell. My friend had had a baby AND a kitten since then. His nose was quite thoroughly out of joint.

11 months with one and a week with the other

I have one homebody-never out of earshot of a packet of Dreamies being shaken- and one wanderer. 15 days is her record so far. Came home happy and healthy and smelling of the outdoors and the woods, not someone else's house. That's cats for you.....

Mine sodded off for a week and sauntered back in when we'd convinced ourselves he was gone. Later worked out through FB that he'd made his way to a little industrial estate near our house and made a thorough nuisance of himself! He's never ventured further from the garden since!

One used to go Walkabout in the summer and would be gone for several days at a time. He had form for it, and we knew he'd be back.

One disappeared and was found in a supermarket car park the following day by a neighbour who spotted him and told us.

One was gone for three months and turned up in a nearby town after someone kept seeing him in her garden and she looked on FB and found the lost cat post on there. A miracle we got him back. He's miaowing at me right now because he wants his evening Dreamies.

3 nights. Came back stinking of booze and fags. Think she had got locked in the pub (or it’s cellar) which was 5 doors down from us at the time

Nearly 6 weeks. They usually come back.

6 months missing... Went to the very local shops... Think 2 streets away.. And there was Molly sat under a tree.. She jumped over a fence and I went and knocked.. Apparently she had been living rough there.. Had a broken tooth and was very skinny. She was chipped and nobody thought to take her to the vet... Was upset about that! She came home but popped off now and again to nowhere in particular!

DD's cat, Cleo, disappeared for six months.

DD was sure she'd never see her again, until Cleo walked back through the cat flap, thinner and not a bit wiser.

2 weeks for an un neutered Tom and a week for a neutered Tom. Boys always seem to wander more especially in Spring apparently.

My usually indoor cat got out recently and was gone for just over 24hrs!

Also thinking the worst but I put her litter box outside and she did find her way home.

She wears an AirTag on her collar now.

15 long nights ! Had clearly got into a van (loves a van!) and she was found in a school playground across the town where we live. Someone saw her and posted it on the local Facebook site. She was a bit thin and matted (long haired) but otherwise fine.

My sil adopted a feral kitten that lived in the haulage yard where sil worked. Eventually, she turned into a lovely companion and seemed settled.
Sil moved house an hours drive away this time last year, cat was kept inside until she was used the new house.
The front door was left open a tad too long one day and whoosh! cat was out and away.
Cue posts on the local FB, 'lost' posters put up, walking around the area and there had been a couple of sightings but that's all.
It's been a year now, sil believes she will come back and I will tell her about pp's Maine Coone story, and not to give up hope.

I guess the cat chose the feral life.

I was house/ cat sitting for my mum in my 20's (back from uni for the summer). They went on a 2 week honeymoon and one of the two cats vanished. I wasn't worried for a couple of days because it was summer and they were often out at night. After 4 days I started to worry. After a week I was phoning vets, knocking on doors etc. It was like she evaporated. The night before my mum was due home I was so worried, couldn't sleep, went downstairs for a cig at 2am and there she was waiting at the door to be let in. Cats are actually evil!

Ahhh these stories are really encouraging. I'll pass on the litter tray trick to my friend.

We rehomed two boys (Simba and Binx) and one (Simba) was not neutered so obviously we decided to keep them in for a few weeks so we could get them both settled and for the neutering.

We were soooo careful, except one night we left the tiny upstairs bathroom window open about 4 inches, it was literally the top horizontal opening for steam to get out. Steam and cats to get out apparently.

Woke up at 6am because we could hear loud meowing out the front. Bolt upright, complete panic, WHERE ARE THE FUCKING CATS? Both running around naked like lunatics. I went downstairs and Binx was on the front window sill looking terrified (probs coz I was still naked tbh) so we put on dressing gowns and slowly managed to coax him in. No sign of Simba who had been so shy and timid since he arrived.

Cue total frenzy of running around the streets, shouting his name, crying (mainly me), in and out the house, accusations, horror etc. I actually took the day off work because I couldn’t leave the house for fear of him returning then leaving again.

I cried all day, it was SO DRAMATIC, 4000 FB posts on every group imaginable. I leafleted 8 streets, wandered around carrying a bowl of food ‘SIIIMMMBBBAA’ I cried, ‘SIIIMMMBBAA’.

He did not return.

I emptied the hoover bag contents in the garden so he could smell his fur. We put out a litter tray. I laid my clothes over garden furniture. We left out bowl after bowl of tuna (that the birds ate) and dry food.
The night got dark. Someone said they might have seen a cat that could possibly have been ginger by the river at 11pm! Went to the river. Couldn’t even see any ducks.

So I decided to sleep on the sofa with the back adjoining room sliding doors wide open and all the lights on.

I barely slept, but was awoken at 4am to the sound of crunching. I opened my eyes and there was Simba right at the back door with a lady friend in tow! I somehow kept my cool and managed to persuade him
in the door.

So in conclusion, I got my cat back after about 24 hours and much distress (for me not him), he probs got a girl pregnant, now he has no balls.

16 long days and nights.
He sauntered in smelling of bacon and another woman's perfume.Little sod !
We had done all the usual, FB, reporting him to the microchip company, flyers all over our village.
He's still the same 8 years later but now we are so used to it that it's a surprise if he is at home.

The big positive here is that the cat was used to the feral life. Its probably out living the wild life for a bit and may well come home. Wishing a happy reunited story for your SIL. I don't think any of us are over the Maine Coone shenanigans...

9 weeks and then waltzed home as right as rain, a bit skinnier than when he left but nothing that he couldn't afford to lose!

He was largely an indoor cat too so I didn't think he had much in the way of street smarts but apparently I was wrong.

Fat Eric went missing for three months and then he was found miles away..
We suspect he had got in a workmans van.

One of our house cats got out and was missing for 10 days before someone found him and phoned me, no idea why he hadn't come home as he wasn't that far away.