Cat has been missing since March 3rd. Any similar miracle stories & advice would be greatly appreciated.

[MissingCat123]

Hi everyone, hope you're well.

My roughly 3.5 year old male tabby has been gone since the 3rd of March and it has been a truly awful time for me.

Similar threads like these, and on Reddit, along with posts from people on Quora, Facebook etc have helped kept me sane throughout it all. Didn't expect to ever be making a Mumsnet account but 😅.

My cat was extremely well-fed to the point of being a VERY picky eater, at a chunkier but healthy weight and would absolutely love to roam. In the last few months or so his roaming patterns did increase in variety, and whilst I initially was very worried when he first disappeared for 1-2, then 3-4 days, he would ALWAYS return for food and thus I would get used to that infrequent schedule and would feed him whenever he appeared (sometimes he would eat three times a day, and sometimes he wouldn't be there for 2 days etc). He was both an indoor and outdoor cat who would often sleep and chill inside semi-regularly; so he wasn't just left outside at all.

The significant thing is that he isn't neutered, and this wasn't down to ignorance or skewed personal beliefs; rather I simply didn't have the platform at the time to understand that neutering a male cat was something very significant regarding roaming etc. I also now realise that some of the behaviours he exhibited from a younger age were a result of that too. He's a lovely cat but did show territorial behaviours like markings etc. Would've 100% gotten him neutered a while back if I was properly aware of this. This is the first time we had a male cat properly grow with us, compared to the females we had before (that we did get spayed after they had kittens).

One day at the beginning of March, after being gone for a week he returned having visibly lost a lot of weight and was exhausted. The last time he was gone for that long he scoffed down multiple packets of food (not a refeeding syndrome risk in that case), but this time was different. He was kept inside where he was going to be monitored and where a vet trip was set to be arranged the following day.

He rested for basically a full day (he was already a fairly heavy sleeper before) and passed stools twice. He would always indicate that he wanted to go outside in similar situations previously but this time he passed them inside so it had to be cleaned up. He would get up for the occasional drinking of water + some broth, but would go back to rest.

Unfortunately (at the time I thought this was a positive in terms of him having the energy to get up), on the following day where he was to be taken to the vet, he went missing.

The CCTV footage shows him moving slower than usual (though he had rested for a while) and then disappearing into a nearby garden. The area in which he left meant that he likely would've had to climb a fence to get to the next part (which is where I had doubts regarding his energy). I have already checked those areas and come up short.

There are a lot of return stories where someone's cat was fully healthy upon disappearance which I feel is unfortunately a different situation to mine. I would've worried a little less in that case too since I would've assumed it was purely roaming-related.

I know that cats can be absolute fighters & incredibly resilient, and can survive some of the absolute toughest situations; both in terms of weather and illnesses. Sometimes the internet says that multiple days without food leads to things like fatty liver disease, and kidney issues when they go without water for a while, whilst other times cats have clearly survived for far longer without both and have still made full recoveries.

In terms of outdoor awareness, he definitely is a very street smart cat which I guess remains a source of optimism when it comes to potentially fending for himself. There was a time however in 2024 where he had hurt himself a little on his back leg (after a vet trip it was all good) and I had to absolutely search for a long while to find him before that since he wasn't responding to my normal calls too. I know that cats may often hide when they are ill or hurt, and obviously the absolute worst-case scenario is when they leave to find a spot to pass away in as happened to two of my previous cats who were much older.

I have tried Nextdoor, Facebook groups, Pawboost, Petsreunited, Animal Search UK etc and will continue to do that. I have posted flyers all around and notified as many people as I can. Heck I have also contacted all local vet practices (especially those that post on social media of injured/deceased cats being handed in). I have listened to a lot of the advice people give on lost cats too, and have spoken to multiple online vets via my insurance and via sites like JustAnswer, and submitted the most recent video/photos I had of him.

None of them ruled out the possibility that he could still be out there, whilst one of them said it was less likely he had contracted something like FIV due to his age. When he was sleeping inside before he left, his breathing looked fine according to the video vet, and the temperature + his gums which I was instructed to check at the time were normal. Again, things like these could've been properly confirmed at the vet visit obviously so I'm not saying they were 100% definitive but at least they were not noticeable at the time.

I'm also not sure whether his desire to roam remained despite his weaker state, and whether it overshadowed that condition or not.
The weaker state that he was in makes me feel that a lot of these story searches feel less compatible than they should be despite taking up 90% of my day; because I feel it is unrealistic to expect my cat to suddenly turn up in one of those "stray cat" pictures at a healthier weight again unless he was just battling something temporary and also managed to get a consistent food source elsewhere. Obviously the less serious the potential issue that he faced, the better.

I strongly don't think this is a scenario where he had a second home like many cats do either, but I have no total guarantee of that without proof. However, there was a post from Pawboost back in January (before this saga) from about a mile away where someone posted a photo of a VERY similar-looking cat wanting food; which if him would be something would confirm the roaming.

I know someone who had a very similar situation with his own cat (was a year older than mine) and he was devastated. The cat somehow returned by itself after 2.5 months-in a very similar condition but not life-threatening, and eventually recovered fully.

I have learnt a LOT during this unfortunate period where like I mentioned I have spent 90% of my days trying to look for him. A month is both a very long time, but also comparatively very little when I see how long many people's cats have gone for, but obviously in my case I am fearing the worst as every day passes.

The same two friendly ginger cats (not sure if they are strays or not) that would often accompany him who I would feed as well, are still around. One of them recovered from a horrific huge open wound that covered its neck and stomach around 2 years ago too. It genuinely looked like that cat was on borrowed time yet it fully healed, and this this adds to my own hope in a way; in that whatever affected my own cat at the time was hopefully something he could heal from by himself.

I would absolutely love to hear if you guys have any similar stories of cats disappearing for similar times in a less assuring state and returning/recovering, as they will help me so much during these times.

If he somehow returns/if I find him, then it would be the absolute biggest relief of all time for me. The cycle of emotions during this past month has been almost unbearable at times. I'm much calmer than I was around 2 weeks ago but he is still on my mind for most of the day.

I have raised him since he was a kitten and he was a huge part of my daily life. He replaced the void that was there after my 13-year old female tortie passed and I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours with him.

Since he has been gone, there have also been multiple thuggish male cats coming into our garden that wouldn't usually have been seen otherwise. And at least two of them tried to mark their territories via spraying too. So could it be a case of him being pushed off his territory or something? (especially in his more vulnerable state).

There will be a aspects of my post that may result in questions which I hopefully can answer, but I hope that I have covered things sensibly enough when it comes to the timeline of events and my actions/emotions. I may have written an absolute wall of text (sorry!) but right now I find great comfort in things like this; especially when I hopefully addressed as many areas as possible unique to my case.

Once again, thank you guys so much for taking the time to read this, for the support/advice you give and for hopefully posting your own return success stories ♥️.

Empty out your vacuum cleaner and put it on the doorstep. He may be lost and disoriented and this will help him find his way home. My childhood cat disappeared one day and turned up two years later, miaowing at the kitchen window, wearing a smart red collar and clearly cross that we had blocked up the cat flap. So there is always hope. (We never found out where she had been but she didn’t move out again and stayed with us until she died at the age of 22.)

If he’s not neutered he will be off trying to mate any un-neutered females. I’d put blankets/throws that will smell of you and him on the washing line if you have one, and agree with pp re vacuum cleaner contents. If he usually toilets outside (and it’s been awhile) you probably don’t have a litter tray you can tip out?

A colleague’s cat was missing for months, and turned up absolutely miles away - the local news Facebook group has a missing pets feed and someone in the area he was in recognised him on there. He was eventually scanned for a chip and trapped and brought home, but it was quite a saga. They think he must have hitched a lift in an Amazon van or similar as it really was a long way off. He’s a house cat now!

Make sure that your contact details are up to date with the chip company. Walk around his usual haunts when it’s quiet so he can hear you calling him. Ring all the local vets and cat rescue centres to see if he’s been taken to one.
Our cat was missing for months but we got him back because a vet scanned his chip and contacted us.

Wow, that's a wild story!

Will definitely do this. Should I also empty some in the back garden too?

I also read why the litterbox method is something you shouldn't do, and it wasn't an option for me in the first place because of the fact that after a certain age he stopped using the litterbox anyways and would ask to go outside to do his business.

Thanks for your help!

I mentioned to TurnipsAndParsnips that the litterbox method is something that is apparently something you're not supposed to do as it can have the opposite effect? But obviously it wouldn't be a thing in my case in the first place regardless.

If the sole focus is about him still seeking mating, then that would still be a good situation since it would indicate that he is alive and at least well enough to do so. The condition that he went missing in is unfortunately the biggest issue for me in this case.

If he found himself with the energy to roam again then that would be wonderful (and I am not saying the roaming itself is a good thing). He was already used to roaming but as mentioned would ALWAYS return for food and would return hungry. So that's where the worry is; because we had a routine that was clearly broken and the way that he looked in the last CCTV footage of him was unfortunately very different to how he would normally leave our garden.

Bear in mind he hadn't eaten a lot at all, and spent most of his day sleeping, and the last time he returned after the week like I said he was more exhausted than hungry and did not look 100% like himself. When a chunkier cat comes back looking much skinnier then it is obviously very noticeable.

Wow, what a wild ride that would've been for the poor guy! Again I can only wish that these kinds of situations happened with my cat. And the Facebook groups & Nextdoor especially are something that I spend hours on everyday hoping that there is a post about someone feeding a stray/rescuing a cat, and there have been some nervy lookalike posts but ultimately no direct sighting of my own boy.

If my boy ever makes his way home safely and is alive, then he will become an even bigger house cat than he already was, and the petTracer collar & neutering will be some of the first things we do. Thanks a lot for your help!

Have definitely messaged all the local vets, and have just replied to a particular vet practice that asked for pictures of him in case someone handed him in recently. So I'm awaiting a response.

Great to hear that you got him back! Must've been a huge relief. What was the condition he was in when he returned?

Hopefully the same happens in my case 🙏🏻

My husband had a cat, who had disappeared for weeks, and then, one day - she jumped through the kitchen window and promptly had a litter of kittens on his bed!

Fingers crossed, @MissingCat123🤞

Wow, that must've been quite the surprise! Was he aware that she was pregnant before? Obviously cats would try to look for as safe a place as possible to have their kittens so the timing looks to have been perfect.

Truthfully I would be a little less worried with my cat's disappearance, if the condition that he went missing in was not what it was. That is for me the absolute worst thing right now.

Thanks a lot for your support!

He had no idea she was pregnant. So, she was a dirty stop out, in the extreme!

He said he’ll never forget her little face when she was having contractions, bless her.

Strangely enough he was in perfect condition, he didn’t look like he’d been gone for so long and he was found miles away.

Aww, I still remember the smiles my first lovely female cat gave us when she had her first batch of kittens. Was almost like she was so proud of it (and why wouldn't she be?!) and the trust she afforded us when it came to handling and looking after them was such a great feeling.

If only there's a similar outcome for my cat now! 🙏🏻

Reminds me of when my first cat was scared when we brought her home and we found her up a tree after she went missing; I was still far less worried back then than I am now (was also a kid then so it's a little different too). Not only because of the difference in timeframe but also the seeming health difference of both cats.

I think in my case it is just all the potential factors that are making me fear the worst:

-Potential illness that we couldn't confirm due to him going missing on the day that he was to be taken to the vet. Him being unneutered and therefore still driven by hormones or potentially affected by a disease from fighting etc.

-His lethargy at the time of disappearance. Even though this could suggest that he may not have ventured too far, it could affect the rest of his overall activity especially if the reasoning behind it was of concern.

-His general fear of strangers and his past when it comes to staying quiet during distress (when he hurt his leg in the past).

-The lack of assurance when it comes to him having a consistent food source or even being in a position to have proper hunger (since some conditions can affect that).

Too many things that a lot of these other cases have, I don't feel would apply to my case as much (even though anything can happen) which is why I am naturally fearing the worst 😔.

Now a best-case scenario would be that he had just lost weight from the roaming itself, or had something more minor like worms or a stomach bug rather than something that would properly affect his health.

Any scenario in which he is alive and not in a bad state is all I want. It doesn't matter where he roamed to; just that he didn't have anything seriously wrong with him. Since he was a chunkier cat before, the weight loss was obviously noticeable. However, he was skinny but not concerningly anorexic which I guess is a positive thing.

We aren't like the US where the views on having cats outdoors is different to ours, especially when it comes to our comparative lack of predators etc. Our culture is clearly different in that regard. However I am wishing that out of all of the possible scenarios, that my boy was part of one where he is still alive and healthy enough 🙏🏻😢.

Fingers crossed, hopefully he’ll return home soon, back where he belongs. When ours was missing the worst part was the not knowing what was happening to him. Thankfully he generally sticks close to home now.
Don't give up hope.

Have you contacted the local rescues in case he has been handed in? Is he microchipped? I’m afraid if I found a non microchipped, unneutered, ill looking cat I would assume it didn’t have a home.

Yeah the not knowing aspect is horrible. At least with my previous cat I knew exactly what was wrong with her in terms of her body, so when she drifted off the following morning and disappeared after we returned from the emergency out-of-hours vets it came as a less of a shock.

I just feel that my boy, breaking the routine like he did, and then being in the state that he was where he didn't even eat much at all and looked weak is pointing towards a much more negative outcome. But the routes for him leaving the area were very minimal so I am still wondering how he just disappeared if he looked weak.

It's only really the belief relating to his possible roaming hormones or him somehow becoming disorientated and lost due to whatever he had that I am finding as realistic because everything else I feel doesn't apply as much at all, which is a colossal blow for me.

I really hope he's still alive 🙏🏻😢.

Yeah I have contacted all of the vets and more recently as many rescues as I could regarding him.

The vets so far have confirmed that there have been no cats matching the description that were handed in, but they have told me that they will notify me if that does change.

Hopefully there's a miracle in that regard 🙏🏻. My fear is that, given how he was usually scared of other people aside from a select few, that unless it was part of his roaming environment he would avoid being in an open position where strangers could see that he wasn't doing well. Obviously with the natural instinct of cats to isolate themselves when they're not doing well, it is like a double punch in that regard.

Any situation where he's alive I am praying for. Even if it means someone took him in and gave him a new home. As mentioned in another reply, the way that he disappeared would've suggested that he would at least have enough strength/energy to hurdle an otherwise impossible area so I will continue to use that as a glimmer of optimism.

I really hope he turns up @MissingCat123 My beautiful male tabby has been missing for nearly 8 months now and it's been so hard. I'm just trying to come to terms with it now. Thankfully most of the missing cat threads on here end with the cat reappearing. I know what you're going through and I hope you get a happier and quicker outcome than the one we seem to have got. Hopefully if you get him back and neutered he'll be more of a home boy. Best of luck

My absolute best wishes to you, buddy.

Getting through 8 months of this makes you such a strong person, and I wish that your unbridled faith gets rewarded.

Yeah like I mentioned, all of these sites and the threads that have happy endings have allowed me to keep the optimism throughout despite how this has negatively impacted a large part of my life. It has literally become a major part of my day to refresh my brain with a lot of these stories.

My boy loved to be in the house and obviously decimated the food we gave him as he was extremely spoilt in that regard! So it wasn't like he was desperate to get out either.

The period before he was gone for a week was totally normal too; as he had gulped up a ton of food and willingly walked into the night.

The natural hypochondria when it comes to fearing all of the cat illnesses etc is what affects me at the worst moments. Too many things that were a possibility just because I wasn't able to rule them out definitively. There are also many things that overlap with the symptoms that my cat was showing before he disappeared; which is both a source of frustration, but also of optimism at times in the sense that the best-case scenario could've been that he dealt with something that he could recover from.

In a way the fact that he was unneutered sometimes adds to my optimism because of the fact that increasing roaming periods and the months that many cats could go for is much more common than not. As mentioned previously he was a street smart cat which I feel would help him survive a little better even if he managed to get disorientated and lost. And when I get to see these fat thuggish unneutered feral cats that clearly aren't someone's pets, it gives me hope too when it comes to the survival of a cat in a similar situation.

When my previous cat (a spayed tortie) rapidly declined in health and disappeared one night after returning from the vet I came to terms with that very quickly. But in this case there are simply too many factors that allow me to keep hope for an possible return.

The most important thing in both of our cases is that there is no questioning our love for them, and no question that we took great care of them (and both definitely knew that!).

Of course this entire period has taught me so much more about cats for sure which I am grateful for.

Hopefully we see both our beloved ones return. Thanks for your support!

@MissingCat123 I hope your cat comes back!

My neutered tortie female dcat was gone for 6 months. One day at the very local shops I saw her sat under a tree. She jumped the wall and I went and knocked on a few doors. Apparently she had been sleeping in a shed and eating birds.. Not sure how none of the neighbours saw my bloody advert in all of those shops!!. Don't lose hope op. Are there any farms local to you? Food supply there and likely lots of other dcats. Possibly ladies on tap!!

Thanks, buddy!

Wow! I would love for that to be the case for my boy haha. A consistent food source and shelter. The weather hasn't exactly been amazing recently with the heavy wind and the rain either. Again, he would obviously be indoors during this period in front of a heater and with his blanket if needed too.

My boy was the kind of cat who would much rather eat his gourmet food than a mouse that is within 3ft of him haha. He didn't like normal jelly food either.

The issue I have is that if he was in definitive good health (which I unfortunately doubt he fully was), then I struggle to see him being gone for this long unless he simply wasn't able to suppress his hormonal urge and just came to rest previously before leaving to find a mate again.

I've seen stories about cats joining feral colonies or as mentioned previously being so driven by their hormones that they roam for so many miles and get lost, but IDK, him being alive is my only wish, man.

My first ever cat in 2009, we got when she was a few months old and she was so nervous on the first day in a new environment that she was found up a tree! And she soon ended up following us through a whole row of shops too; legitimately popping inside almost every one of them (including a butchers so pretty wild restraint there!).

Would someone nearby who has a drone be willing to have a bit of a look around, in case they can see him?
Yes, as you have learned, unneutered cats can be a liability. We had a cat years ago in the flat we lived in, which was great for ratting lived in and outside, no problems, but when we moved to a house, he was filthy and a menace so we got him neutered.
When my mum in law died we took on her cat who was then 19 and she went wandering off. We did think that because of her age, she may have gone somewhere to pass away, which they often do. Two weeks later, she turned up in a local hairdressers she certainly had a lot to say! How she made it, she had to cross four main roads too. She lived to 22 years

Sorry to hear about your cat. A cat I had in childhood went missing for months, a neutered male.

In the end a man rescued him from a group of kids who had put a lead on him. The man asked in a local bakery if anyone had lost a cat and luckily because the bakery was near to us and we had put posters everywhere we got him back. He was thinner but unharmed.

I think the lesson is, keep the publicity out there.

My current cat is a rescue who was brought to a leading charity as an unneutered tom with FIV. He had a bad tooth and had been living rough for a while until it was apparent he couldn’t eat. He was clearly very well socialised, so must have had an original owner but was rehomed to me. I think your cat might have strayed to another area.