Positive missing cat stories please

[TheEyesHaveHills]

Our beautiful one year old girl has been missing for almost 8 weeks. She vanished from our garden late one evening. I’ve done everything I can think of to find her including leafleting the neighbourhood and social media posts, but apart from one possible sighting early on there’s been no trace of her. She’s neutered and chipped. I keep expecting her to turn up in the garden or to get a call from a vet to say they’ve got her. I’m probably being very naive about the chances of her coming back but I’m struggling to contemplate the alternative. Please tell me any positive stories of missing cats turning up after so long.

My neighbours cat turned up after 10 months! A bit skinnier than before, but otherwise as right as rain.

I hope she’s back with you soon OP x

Oh no, I’m so sorry! Our lovely ginger boy was found after six weeks. He was only one garden away but he seemingly couldn’t find his own way home. He was very thin and I think he must have been locked in someone’s shed and then got confused when he was let out. I posted on Nextdoor about him and a neighbour said “there’s been a ginger cat sitting in my garden recently”. I wasn’t very hopeful but when I went to look, it was him!

My cat went missing and miraculously came back. Turns out she’d been living 200m away in the heated greenhouse belonging to a little old lady. The old lady had been feeding her but thought my cat went home at nights.
I received a call from the RSPCA who had taken her to a vet 30mins away to be scanned for a microchip and they discovered she’d been registered lost 18 months before.
When we collected her, she was still wearing her diamanté collar and name tag.

My girl once disappeared for 10 days. I had given up hope. We had checked all outbuildings, wandered round calling etc. Then my husband went to get something from the detached garage and returned in triumph with the cat! Will never forget him striding through the patio doors beaming 'look who I've found'! It was a dilapidated garage and the door didn't shut properly so we think she must have been wandering when we checked there originally and come back sometime afterwards.

Hoping yours turns up, OP. Sending positive thoughts.

My nan's cat was missing for around 3 months. She'd just adopted a kitten (semi-feral litter dumped at the vets, completely unplanned but took the dog in for a check up & came home with a fiesty fluffball) when Martha was found over 20 miles away.
She came home (healthy if a little underweight) & was quite annoyed to find the kitten on "her" sofa!

Do call the microchip register, if you haven't already done so, to flag her as missing & ensure all contact numbers are correct - when I worked in a vets we had a cat reunited after 3 years.

A work colleague’s cat went missing. Two years later she had a phone call to say the cat had been found. She says the cat immediately settled back at home and behaved as if she’d never been away.

My brother’s cat casually walked in the back door one day having been missing for 18 months. Don’t give up hope! X

Friend’s cat returned after nearly a year. They live rurally with no houses very near, and have no idea where she had gone. She came back for a short time, and then left again . They assume she must have been living somewhere else as she looked healthy.
Several friends only found their cats after very extensive leafleting and knocking on doors. Cats do easily get stuck in places (one my friend’s cats was stuck on the windowsill, two floors up, of a house a couple of streets away, nobody had any idea how she could have got there). So asking people in person to check sheds and garages can help. I’ve also found asking local kids and offering a reward is helpful too. Children tend to be very keen to look under bushes, in sheds etc, if they have a reward. Two friends found out that their cats had been killed on the road, but it was better than never knowing. You can ask refuse collectors if they have picked up a dead cat, sorry to mention this but you may well want to know if that is the situation.
My own cat was missing for nearly two months. He was living rough, there had been a couple of sightings, and eventually I was out near where he’d been seen, in the evening when it was quiet, calling for him, and he appeared. It took him about ten minutes to come to me but then I was able to carry him home.
Wishing you the best of luck op.