The cat came back...

[tharpdevenport]

No, not the very next day, but rather much later.


Just saw a news report from Australia where a cat has been found three years after it disappeared from the island of Tazmania. Somehow it made it to the continent, where eventually it was caught and thankfully had a chip in it.


Imagine the surprise of it's owner to get her cat back after three years.



Anybody here had a pet return after years?

 

[RoJoHen]

I've never had a pet run away. A couple times my old cat would escape the house and hide in the bushes, but that's as far as we ever let him get.

 

[JustKate]

My brother- and sister-in-law got their cat back after a month - which might not sound like much (especially compared to this story), but it's a looooong time for a declawed cat who had never been out of the house before to find enough to eat and drink and to also avoid cars and mean dogs and coyotes and such.

He was one sorry, scrawny guy when he got back - but he lived several years after that. He never again showed any interested in sneaking out of the house, though!

 

[KiraDax]

We've had two cats come back completely on their own power after extended absences.

One mother cat was gone a year then reappeared in the neighbor's yard.

Another tom disappeared for around three years, then popped up on the porch one night. We opened the door, he walked in and plopped down in his old spot. Stayed with us until he died of old age several years later.

Cats are very odd, well-traveled creatures.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner,
The cat came back, he just wouldn't stay away

 

[Lindley]

I took my cat to school for a "pet show" day. He got off his leash and disappeared into the woods around the school. I wasn't able to find him before we had to leave that night.

However, the next day a group of kids who were outside for some reason (gym class maybe) spotted the cat in the woods. They sent a teacher to pull me out of computer class, and I was able---with difficulty---to sneak up on Ebony and pick him up. Carried him (resisting---that cat did *not* like to be carried) to the librarian's office, and closed him in there until my mother was able to bring a cat carrier to get him.

 

[Marc]

No, not the very next day, but rather much later.


Just saw a news report from Australia where a cat has been found three years after it disappeared from the island of Tazmania. Somehow it made it to the continent, where eventually it was caught and thankfully had a chip in it.


Imagine the surprise of it's owner to get her cat back after three years.



Anybody here had a pet return after years?

I just don't get how it got from Tasmania to Queensland - pets might wander and wander and but swim Bass Straight?

Somebody must of taken because after all this time it you would of expected it to have gone feral if was just in the wild.

 

[Miss Chicken]

We had a cat called Crumb. He wasn't a very friendly cat and he didn't even like being patted. He also didn't get in well with Miss Chicken.

One day he disappeared. After about six months I came home and found him on my doorstep. He looked well feed. He followed me inside and I feed him. Later when my son came home Crumb darted out the door and we never saw him again. I assume he had found a nice home somewhere else and lhe lowered himself to visit us this one time.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The one dog I ever had once went missing for several months. We assumed she had been killed. Then one day she came bolting into the yard, very happy to be home. Lost? Kidnapped? Who knows?

Then we had a cat who had a mental breakdown after our two other cats were killed or disappeared. He went to live with the neighbor's horses and only came to visit us on Holidays.

 

[RoJoHen]

This thread makes me want to watch Homeward Bound.

 

[Australis]

Hmm, seems to happen here a lot.

Cat missing 11 YEARS turns up!:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21191811-948,00.html

Dog missing 9 YEARS!
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/07/31/103525_gold-coast-news.html
This made national news.

These stories are peculiar because they are found thousands of miles from where they were lost. That's the odd part.

I have a theory, that animals have a magic road that humans don't know about, that lets them travel so far in a few weeks. One day we'll find it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ That raises the question of where they were and what they were doing all those years if they could have come back at any time. Maybe they were fighting in some secret animal war or something.

 

[Miss Chicken]

How much time could a cat war take up?

My cat (Miss Chicken) is Supreme Ruler of the World and she still finds time to nap for at least 16 hours a day in my house.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, then it would take a real long time. It's probably been going on for centuries.

That reminds me of a story or folk tale I read when I was kid, called "King Of The Cats." I'll have to see if I can track it down....

 

[RJDiogenes]

I actually found it.

 

[Jono]

We had our cat go missing for 18 months back in the mid-90s. Found out it had moved a kilometre or two down to the house of a kid who was in my year. We got that cat back but we had adopted a stray around a year earlier and the new cat did not like another cat in the house at all.

Several weeks later we all disappeared on holiday and when we returned only our stray remained, with our found missing cat once again missing, this time forever. Let's just say we were very suspicious of our remaining cat.