No point looking for cat lost for 24 hours now is there?

[KittyGone]

Indoor cat got out last night. Have looked everywhere for her. Put posts out on the local fb group, nobody has seen her, she was on my ring doorbell this morning and has now disappeared. There’s no point continuing to look any more is there as she’s obviously gone. 😢. She’s got out a couple of times before and always found her way back but this time I just know she’s gone. You know when you know that kind of thing?

Took us 3 days to find our house cat that got out. She was a massive scaredy cat and simply bunkered down and waited for us to find her. Search at night when it’s quieter, shine torches into hedges, under cars and anywhere else they could hide. Look for their bright eyes to light up, don’t give up yet

My house cat went missing for 3 nights and just turned up at the door like nothing was wrong. I posted leaflets through every house asking them to check their garage/shed and left my number on the leaflet so I think she was stuck somewhere

I had a cat who reappeared after 3 months! Did this again for a shorter time too

Keep looking. I found a cat in my stable yard. It took me a couple of weeks feeding her to catch iher. Took her to the vet and she was chipped. We reunited her with her owner. Poor cat had been missing 8 weeks after she got out in a storm. We live about 4 miles from them. I will never forget how this poor nervous cat walked into their house and just flopped down on their rug.

I felt like this when our cat went missing but it had been a week. And then I put posters on all the lampposts and he turned up that night! He had been going into the window of a bunch of students who weren’t on the local Facebook groups….

Keep looking, put posters up on lampposts, leaflet drop houses. Mine came back after 3 and a half days and the cat we had when I was young came back after about 4 months, miaowed at the door and then waltzed in for food as if he’d never been gone.

I put the contents of the hoover in the garden, her litter tray and worn pyjamas on the line. Please don’t give up, it’s very early days

My Gonzo was missing for 6 weeks. He was found via my multiple facebook posts.
Post in all of the local groups, local ‘lost and found’ groups and follow all of the local vets pages.

My daughter's cat was missing for four months before she returned.

One of mine went missing for a week. Turned up one morning sunbathing by the back door like nothing had happened!

Oh and did she definitely get out OP? I also have an indoor only cat (his choice not mine) and he went missing for 3 days before we realised he was in the ceiling having gone up the back of the boiler flue whilst the cupboard was off during a kitchen renovation. He also once spent 24 hours in a chimney that we thought was sealed off but still had a teeny tiny gap. Absolute weirdo.

Don’t underestimate the power of actual printed posters on lampposts. We had pretty much the whole village rooting for us on our Facebook posts, but ultimately located via an elderly lady who had spotted the posters whilst taking a walk to the post office and knew our cat had been hiding in her garden

Don’t lose hope - 24 hours is nothing. Big Fur used to bolt for 3 days on the trot, we thought he had another family on the go.

I just updated a thread I posted a week ago saying the cat came home a week after going missing. We think she'd got herself shut in a garden shed or garage, and the owners of that home had been on holiday. The cat's owner leafletted her area the day after she went missing then again on Saturday - and the cat appeared Saturday night.

DSis's old boy went missing for over a month in the middle of winter a few years back.

You say you've been to all the local vats - have you contacted all the local rescues, and the chip company?

I’m just not convinced. If she was out there she would 100% have come back by now. If not to come inside, at least to gloat from the top of the shed, and sit there miaowing in defiance. She’s absolutely not out there. My guess is she’s probably been run over and whoever did hasn’t bothered to stop.

Phone the council in the morning. Most have departments that will collect animals that have been run over. Also make sure you’ve called the 24hr vet that was on duty that night bc it might be further out of your catchment area.
I had one go missing for 9 days. Turned up again, clearly had been locked in somewhere.
Sadly lost her brother 2 years later bc he was playing on the road at 5am…he’d been taken to the emergency vet about 15 miles away.

You are just being silly.
im sorry your cat is missing but its far from unusual

You’re likely to hear something if she was run over. We have local FB groups and people like me go out and collect the cat and take to a vet for scanning

The one I'm sitting here looking at right now was missing for two months. He was found via a fb post shared by someone in another town. Somebody else saw it and realised that he was the cat living rough in her street. She contacted adult dc via fb who went over there and managed to find him.

Never give up hope.

We have my MiL’s cat with us just now as she’s doing renovations to a new house she’s bought. We kept him in for six weeks before letting him out, and he promptly vanished. He was gone six days before sauntering back, hungry but none the worse for wear (although did have a dodgy tummy for a few days after eating alllll the food he could get his paws on including our cat’s). He’s used to being out, but not in this area.

I flyered houses in our street and the one our garden backs on to, and put posts on the community FB group. People were really kind. We knew he was mainly in the gardens behind us, living his best life. We did put his litter tray in the garden, and MiL brought round clothes of hers that needed washed which we pegged on the line. The neighbouring cats and our cat enjoyed some bonus meals because we put food out for him too - I chose pouches that were fishy as they smell revoltingly strong!

But it’s far more usual for the cat to not come back than it is for them to come back.

You only have to look at the number of cats that are killed on the roads each year to know that.

The positive stories are in the minority.

not sure what you want us to say? I mean we can agree and say yes she’s gone but that’s not true so…
indoor cats tend to hole up somewhere and hide for a good while

No I'd say the majority of cats are found eventually.

Also, it's far more likely to find a missing indoor cat - there's lots online about them being more likely to be hiding nearby scared.

@KittyGone but what about the millions of cats who go out on the daily and come back in time for their dinners? Ours goes out and comes back in for a wee, he’s such a little prince, despite being born as a stray in a shed!

It’s horrible that your cat’s gone missing, but I think at this stage it’s very soon to be assuming some terrible tragedy has befallen her.

I’ve had two outdoor cats go missing and be found 3-7 days later over the years and seen quite a few found after a few days / weeks on local groups.

You may feel despondent and like you need to face the worst but you should
still be attempting to search and put up posts/
posters.

My indoor cat was found three days later. She was under a neighbours porch. I waited til it was late at night then called her. Another outfit cat disappeared for five days. Came back all dusty - probably got locked in someone’s shed or garage.