If your cat returned after a week or more of being missing, what’s the story?

[NewForestMum123]

My cat has been missing for 6 days now. She rarely misses a meal by more than an hour let alone anything else. I’m not overly optimistic we’ll see her again but I’m baffled as to how a cat can disappear off the face of the planet in this age of social media and microchipping. I live on a very common dog walking area so if she’s hiding/dead anywhere public, I’m sure a dog would have found her. Perhaps she’s hiding in someone’s garden, but surely most people would spot a cat after best part of a week?

I was just browsing a local ‘pet lost and found’ Facebook group and there is a surprising amount of “reunited!” posts saying their cats were missing for a week or more.

So my question is… if your cat has returned after a long absence before, what’s the story? Did you manage to find them, and if so, how? Did they just wander back into the house? Did a stranger find them and alert you?

Mine was missing for 8 days a few years ago. She was an indoor cat who jumped out of an open window and seemed to disappear for the face of the earth. We searched for her every day, called late at night when it was quiet I the hope she would hear us and nothing. One night I was in bed and heard meowing - looked out and she was outside the window - covered in oil. Our guess was that she’d been locked in someone’s garage or something and they hadn’t opened the door for a number of days. It was an ordeal trying to bath her but other than that she was right as rain!

One of mine vanished for 13 days - we never knew for sure but think she must have been in a shed or garage and someone had gone away as it was over Christmas. She was fine but very hungry and thirsty.

Shes also just appeared today after 4 days missing. I wonder if she has another family she visits.

Hope yours turns up very soon.

I was given a kitten by my mum when I was 13. What a stupid decision at that age (it was my birthday and it was free, her way of avoiding paying for a present for me). A potentially 20 year commitment put on me. I moved out when I was 17, kept the cat inside the new house for 6 weeks, but the first time I let him out he got lost and disappeared. He was gone for months, I’d actually moved to another area before I found him again. My boyfriend at the time was driving by our old town and the cat was lying by the side of the road. He was ok but looked like shit, definitely hadn’t had anyone else caring for him when he was missing. Unfortunately I had to move countries years later, I’d had him 13 years by that point. I was far more careful in starting to let him out then, I’d say it was about a year and a half before he disappeared again, and we never found him :/

One of ours went missing for about three weeks once. We did all the usual things to try and find her, neighbours kindly checked sheds, shared facebook posts etc but to no avail. We’d assumed the worst, and then one afternoon she came crashing back through the cat flap, with a chorus of plaintive meows. She was very skinny, and the vet said she was quite dehydrated but she made a full recovery within a few weeks. We’ll never be any the wiser as to what happened to her but reckon she was either locked in somewhere with access to a little water, or got spooked and lost before finding her way home.

Fingers crossed your’s turns up soon. It’s so worrying when this happens out of character.

No experience sorry but sending best wishes. Hope she appears very soon

Mine vanished into thin air, we think he got out when the front door was open and my husband had ran to the car to get something late at night. He's never been seen since, young cat with no health problems. It still baffles me now as we are close to neighbours in our small cul de sac and no one at all spotted him. I wonder now and again where he went!

I hope you have a more positive outcome, I'm sure you will. Keep us updated!

Ours went missing for three months. I think he got spooked on his normal path and ended up lost. He was found about 4 miles away and the person that found him took him to the vets to be scanned. We received a phone call to say he’d been found. When he was brought back to our house it was like he hadn’t been missing.

Well the “they just reappeared” messages are certainly helping. I feel so guilty for not constantly being out looking for her, but even if that was possible practically, I don’t want to become obsessive about this and upset my kids.

@LilacLemur I had a cat years ago who used to reappear every couple of days smelling of a woman’s perfume. Cat was disappearing for increasing periods of time when the woman popped round to tell me he was limping and asked if I could take him to the vet. Cheeky fuckery I thought, seeing as she’d stolen my cat! Turns out he was eating and one neighbours, and sleeping at hers. She thought he’d been coming home for food!

One of ours was missing for five months we got her back when someone spotted our poster on Facebook, we had searched everywhere and put posters up and leafletted everywhere. She turned up outside someone’s door crying and they got a charity volunteer out who scanned her chip.

We were told people had seen her in a nearby field, but given she had been missing for so long the volunteer thought she might have been fed by someone and then they could have gone away as it was Christmas time when we got her back. There was an aggressive unneutered tom cat in our area at the time she disappeared so we think she may have run away and got lost, she was the other side of the motorway and railway and we don’t know how she got to where she was found.

Don’t give up, keep posting on local groups, contact Harvey’s Army for your area and they will get posters out on Facebook too and you can print them and put them up http://www.harveysarmy.com/

Mine was 10 days, locked in a shed I think, very skinny and very vocal but ok. Covered in cobwebs so think eating spiders to survive

I put posters up, knocked on doors etc everywhere. what annoyed me was no one knocked n to tell me where they were released from. I know they didn’t have to but I would have liked to known

Oh and do make sure all her chip details are up to date and let your vets know she is missing.

When mine vanished for months I went searching multiple times every day and night, shouting and rattling his biscuit box, he never responded. I walked up to 3 miles away from my house. When we found him he was in the street next to where we lived. There is absolutely no way he didn’t hear me every single day but just refused to come out. They’ll only be found when they want to be. I wouldn’t be worried about there being no sightings or not being able to search for them 24/7

We lost three childhood cats. Just vanished never to be seen again and two within one week of each other. I still wonder what happened to them. Our little female got lost a few summers ago and was found when a couple on the street over recognised her from the missing cat posters and rang the number. Looking at where she was found I think she jumped down a huge wall onto a road she wasn’t familiar with and then couldn’t get back up the wall to our garden a few houses over. So prob laid low in some unfamiliar gardens until these kind people spotted her and tempted her into their house, and then rang us.

Someone I know had their car go missing for a few years! Got a phone call out the blue about the cat, she had got a new one by then.

Mine is a house cat (by choice) and she sneaked out the window for a few nights and turned up at a neighbours house for a drink of water! No idea where she had been.

My lady disappeared years ago and turned up after a month, skinny but unharmed. I'd just moved house so I think she wandered off and couldn't find her way home, there's no way she'd have survived trapped somewhere.

The weird thing was, my friend who's very woo rang me and said "Please don't give up hope, I had a dream about her and I saw her coming back to you, she's very thin but ok", The next morning the cat turned up on my doorstep .

One of ours disappears for a week at a time during the summer. The first couple of times we worried but he always came back, just wandered in as if he'd never left. Then we added an apple tag to his collar and discovered he had a favoured hedge down the road from us. We fetched him from there once after he moved down to the hedge while we were on holiday. He seemed gobsmacked we'd found him! The longest he's usually away is 10 days but usually pops home after about a week.

I had a cat years ago who used to reappear every couple of days smelling of a woman’s perfume. Cat was disappearing for increasing periods of time when the woman popped round to tell me he was limping and asked if I could take him to the vet. Cheeky fuckery I thought, seeing as she’d stolen my cat! Turns out he was eating and one neighbours, and sleeping at hers. She thought he’d been coming home for food!

Weve got almost this exact situation going on right now. Our cat lives between a couple of neighbours and rarely visits us. They feed him fresh fish, give him a bed, basically they have stolen him. I often wonder what they'll do if he needs vet treatment. They have our number, they know he's our cat. But they don't seem to care.

I hope your cat turns up op

Just appeared at the back door after two weeks, a bit skinnier, but otherwise all well. I assume she’d been shut in somewhere, then dashed out when they unlocked the shed/garage etc.

One of my cats disappeared for a week and came strolling back in with half his tail missing ☹️ poor little boy. We never found out how it had happened or where he had been. We took him to the vets of course who tidied up and stitched the end of his tail. Vet thought he must have had his tail shut in something heavy. He was right as rain after and never went missing again.

One of our previous generation used to just leave for 3-6 weeks over summer, and come back all sleek and panthery and ravenous :D Neutered tom. I did once spot him in a churchyard in the next street, and he glanced over at me then trotted off intent on some rodent probably.

One of our current lot spent a couple of years coming back late for dinner smelling of perfume or coal fire depending on time of year. That's stopped now, coincidentally after a known random-cat-feeder lady down the street moved away.

I had my siamese go missing for almost 3 weeks, we had just about given up hope, until one day I was looking out at the front garden, when she just jumped over from next door’s garden and came through the cat flap.
Apparently she had managed to get shut into one of next door’s flats after the tenants had moved out, she must have only survived because of a dripping tap.
She was very skinny, and spent a long time afterwards glaring at me! 🙄

A couple of months ago a flyer type leaflet was put through my door (and I assume the rest of the street) asking to check sheds, garages etc for a missing cat. I don't have a shed but hung onto the flyer.
For about 4-5 months a tiny cat had been visiting my bird feeders, the cat was hissy and unapproachable. Then didn't see it for a while. You can tell where this is going: one day the cat came into my garden, staggering and lethargic. I scooped it up despite it's hissing, tried to give it water but it face planted into the dish which scared me so took it straight to the vets where they confirmed it was chipped and were contacting the owners. They also told me it's name and that it was local to me. On the off-chance I messaged the number on the flyer, saying if their cat was xxx then it was now at x vets. It was their cat, and he has recovered and reappeared in my garden, back to his hissy unfriendly self!
So don't give up hope, yours may come back under its own steam or via an animal lover ❤️

Not for as long but one of mine has been stuck in people's garages for a prolonged period as the nosey fecker managed to get in them when it was open for literally a minute or so.

I only knew where he was because of his tracker - in one case it was people who were just moving in and they had put their stuff into the garage to store when they got the keys and weren't actually moving in until the following week, so had I not managed to contact the new owner via the estate agents, then he would have been trapped for a week.

He has also been known to get into cars if the window is left open...

Hopefully yours will be back home soon.

Mine was once missing for about 12 days. We'd spoken to all the neighbours and no one had seen him. Then coming home one day we saw our other cat on the front path of a house 2 doors down. He was miaowing and another cat was replying. We had already asked at that house but this time they let us into the cellar and it turned out he had got trapped between 2 fridges stored down there - sides too sheer for him to climb. My kids chased him all over the cellar and eventually got him. Hungry and thirsty but fine.

Mine was taken to another vets 3 weeks later. He’d been found hanging around an area about 10 miles away from where I lived. I assumed he’d got into a delivery van or something