How long was your cat lost for?

[hollyberrytree]

I’m looking for stories to give me some hope.

My cat has now been gone 6 days.
She will occasionally have one night when she doesn’t come in but I don’t think he’s ever been away more than one. She’s 11 and therefore in routine.
This is what we have done: called her name ( even though she wouldn’t respond, she’d know our voices) we have left used litter outside
Left a bowl of food and water outside. Left my worn clothes on the washing line over night
Asked the neighbours, asked on the village Facebook group
She’s a bit timid and not the sort of cat who would have climbed onto a van or that sort of thing. Shes independent.
I am at a bit of a loss now
Its been so hot too.

Any suggestions welcome.

Just over 3 weeks!

When I was in my 20s I moved from the NE back to the Manchester area, and while finding my own place I moved back in with my mum, dad and teenage sister for a few months. I brought my little cat with me (who everybody adored). We went on a family holiday during this period. My parents went out a week earlier than we did (to Florida), and we stayed with my grandma for a week. I brought the cat with me - grandma was going to look after her the 3 weeks all 4 of us were away, and I wanted to settle her in. The problem we hadn’t anticipated was that grandma’s neighbour had a cat that was a bit of a bully. My cat ended up running away after only a couple of days. We looked for her and looked for her but couldn’t find her. I was devastated.

When we got home to my mum and dad’s a little over 3.5 weeks later, I called for her from the top of the garden. I didn’t have much hope but had to try.

She came shambling up the garden. She was very thin and looked dishevelled, and had hurt her paw. But she was otherwise fine. She got a fancy dinner and lots of cuddles that night, and a check over at the vets the next day. She’d been gone nearly 3.5 weeks and had travelled over 3 miles back to my mum and dad’s from my grandma’s house. She went over the rainbow bridge a few years back now, but I had many more years of happiness with her after she returned home.

Try not to lose hope. It might have been already suggested, but is there any chance she’s gotten shut in somebody’s garage or shed? Or might somebody have taken her in realising she’s lost?

Mine (very timid, afraid of all people apart from us) was gone for 11 days. Completely out of character and we had looked everywhere we could think of, had pretty much given up hope. At 4 o'clock in the morning we were awoken by the familiar thump of her jumping from the wall down onto our bedroom balcony, then a big miaow as she strolled into the bedroom. She was thinner but not starving so she had obviously managed somehow. No idea where she had gone, the only thing we could think of was that she had got into a van or something and been transported somewhere she didn't know.

2 weeks! Have you tried tipping the contents of your hoover out on the grass outside? That's what worked when our cat went missing. Or it was a coincidence. It would be worth a try!

My cat went missing for about a month when he was five. He was semi feral anyway so I knew he was a flight risk.
He came home rather thinner and bedraggled with a big bite mark on his face 😳. My dad reckoned the bite was from a fox but it all healed up fine and his fur grew back ok.
He's 14 now and his happy to potter around at home.
It is a worry when they go missing though 😕

Cats usually return. One of ours came back after six weeks (trapped somewhere but escaped when became thin enough). Always hope.

About 12 months, yes I know, long time, we’d given up on her. Living by open fields we thought a fox had her. Then one night we were sitting on the patio and she strolled up like she’d never been gone. She was very thin and bedraggled looking. We decided she might have gotten into a car or van and been taken far away. Or locked in somewhere, living on vermin. Funnily enough she very rarely ventured out after that, other than a stroll round the garden. Maybe your cat is locked in a shed? Lots of folks catching up on gardening at the moment. I do hope she returns safely to you. ❤️

My cat went missing for a year when I was in secondary school. Someone had taken her in, lied when asked and then dumped her back on the street when they moved out.

My friend also recently got her cat back after a year of being missing after losing all hope. I’m not sure where she’d been!

3 weeks and 5 days.... i looked everywhere, as did all my neighbors. Posted on the local FB sites, put up posters and put photos up, rang all the local vets and rescue centers even though he's microchipped.... not a dicky bird. I was convinced he was dead.
Then he just strolled in one morning at 5am meowing his head off wanting his breakfast! He looked pretty good, shiny coat and not thin at all. He's very antisocial with other people so cant imagine he would have gone into anyone else's house. Little bastard worried me stupid! I had absolutely no idea where he had been!! Do love him though even though he is a self centered bugger 😂😍

16 years. We lived in London. Moved to Derbyshire 13 years ago. Felt sure our cat had died as it had been 3 years…got a call last autumn, he’d been found wandering the streets by the rspca. Sadly he needed to be put to sleep as was very poorly but it was a bit of a strange evening of phone calls. We ended up getting a rescue kitten because we felt so awful that he’d been homeless for so long.

6 months 🙈 turns out he was living in grave yard 15 mins away

10 days stuck in someone’s shed I think. Very very skinny and eating spiders I think but soon got over it

continue knocking on doors and posters asking people to check their sheds

Two years. He just disappeared and we thought he'd had an accident or died outwith the house. He was an un-neutered tom, always fighting (my DF was a big animal lover but was too tight to take any of our pets to the vet) and stayed away for days at a time. He turned up out the blue two years later, looking worse for wear and died about three weeks later

3 months. Let out whilst being cared for when we were on holiday. Walked 15
miles in the opposite direction to home before ending up with the rspca. Had given up hope.

Have you asked neighbours to check in sheds? Are there any houses being renovated locally that she could have slipped in to and then been locked in?

A year. She was in the next road living as a stray. She was in a bad way as she’d developed cancer so sadly she was put to sleep the day after we got her back. Someone had been feeding her assuming her to be stray but hadn’t got her help. One of the missing posters was on the lamppost outside the house where she was being fed!
We were unlucky but it shows they can be not very far away and can lose their bearings.

My DM would say that too. It was used when you moved house. By the time they had licked the butter off, they had familiarised themselves with their new surroundings.

2 weeks. She was only a kitten too and had escaped through the cat flap which next door’s Tomcat had smashed off. She strolled back in and kept on my bed all chirpy. Turns out she was pregnant and had clearly been off on a sex fest with Monty next door. We stood by her. She’s not the first, she won’t be the last. It’s the shame and judgement that were hard to deal with but she got on with it and was a super mum. Monty was rarely seen again after his dad got his nuts off. He was a bad egg and pissed up the gate, with a sort of cocky shaky flourish. Terrible attitude but young girls like the bad boys.

6 weeks, then my daughter was walking down a path about 10 mins walk from home, near to the local chip shop ( I wondered if she scavenged for fish off them?) when she heard a meow and said that sounds like my cat and she came strolling out of the bushes! She was ravenous when we fed her and her sister had 4 kittens which she wasn’t too keen on at first! Not too long after she had 4 kittens of her own so we had 8 kittens and 2 cats who we’d been told were brothers!Shes 13 now and still only ventures rarely into the back garden

I live in the US in an area where most pet cats are kept indoors (we have very bold urban coyotes everywhere, plus hawks and tons of cars, not to mention a-hole humans who would delight to hurt/poison an outdoors cat.)

A few years ago, I found a lovely, friendly tuxedo boy in my yard. He was clean and seemed well-fed, no wounds or injuries visible. I took him to my vet to have him scanned for a microchip, and we found his owner - he had been missing for TWO years! The owner lived about 8 kilometers from me. The owner came to pick him up and when she opened her car door, a tiny Papillon launched itself out of the car and ran over to the cat, who he clearly remembered well, and started licking him. The owner said they'd grown up together. She was a bit odd about the whole thing, probably because she'd given the cat up for dead long since, but that dog was SO happy to have his buddy back.

My oldest (9-year-old void girl) was lost for a few hours because my sister is incapable of closing the door behind her when she enters my house, but luckily I've had a Tile tracker on my girl's collar for years and was able to pinpoint where she was (stuck terrified in a neighbor's yard!)

I've had friends whose indoors cats have escaped due to accident or someone else's negligence, and they all came home within a few days - a few weeks at most. That tuxedo gentleman I found was the longest "lost" cat I've ever hard of.

3 months. He definitely had more than 9 lives. Just turned up one day after we’d lost hope. Clearly having been fed somewhere else. They will find somewhere to get water. Ask your neighbours to check anywhere she may have got trapped (sheds, garages, etc.) Good luck and I hope she comes home soon.

7 days. Longest 7 days of my life. My dad's girlfriend's family lost theirs for 6 months, turned out a nice lady had thought he was a stray and kept him in her flat for 6 months. Ask the neighbours firmly to check sheds and garages.

Ours only went missing for about 4 days (but he was a rescue and we’d only had him 4 weeks at the time, and it was snowing!) - I did all the same things as you but what worked for us was posters dotted around our immediate neighbourhood - good luck!

5 days, managed to get himself locked in a neighborhood house. Did similar almost exactly a year later in a shed, but as he was then wearing a tracker I could retrieve him from the neighbours the next day

Neighbour’s cat came back after a year looking fab- it had obviously tired of its new home! It was like the prodigal son returning! Ours disappeared twice for about three or four days when we had people in minding her

Almost 6 weeks. Any longer and I'm not sure she would have survived as she was so skinny. she coped with rain, snow, ice, fireworks.

I was out multiple times a day at all bloody hours(I got followed one evening that was a bit unsettling), posters, flyers through doors. It was a post on our local facebook page that someone saw and messaged to say they think she was visiting there house.

She went back a couple of times, I dropped some food off so they could put some out at night and a couple of days later we managed to trap her. She lost half her body weight, so was obviously not very good at hunting, and had no claws left so was either trapped in somewhere or hit by a car (she had no injuries though).

It was a horrible time, and one I don't want to go through again. When I got her back, she sat on my lap (she had never done that before and has never done it since) and spent the night glued to me on the bed.