Cat Missing After Family Moves is Found 2 Years Later

Thanks to the family who took a stray cat to the vet for a microchip scan, Cooper is back with his family again after 2 years.

One of the most common times for cats to go missing is in the days and weeks following a move of household on the part of their family.

Cooper is one such cat, who disappeared about two weeks after his family moved into temporary accommodations in Kibworth, Leicestershire UK in the summer of 2011. Petmom Gill Eldridge and her friends searched the neighborhood and dropped leaflets into residents’ mailboxes but didn’t find Cooper or get any leads.

Gill soon moved to her permanent home in Market Harborough, six miles away. She recalled Cooper’s disappearance, saying “I had been very upset there was no trace of him. He was a rescue cat and very timid. I think he felt disorientated, having moved into the village for only a couple of weeks.”

“While he was missing I could not think about what had become of him.”

There was no word on Cooper and his whereabouts until last week, when Gill received a call from a vet’s office in Kibworth on June 5, saying her cat had been found and was in good health. A local family had been feeding Cooper for about six weeks, after they spotted him hanging around their garden. The family brought the cat to Ash Tree Vets, where a microchip scan revealed Cooper’s identity and led to the reunion with his family.

Gill said Cooper walked back in to home life with his family, “as if he had never been away. He looked just the same as when I last saw him in September 2011.”

“Our other cat Tarka, who mothers him and keeps him in order, just started to groom him as if to say “where have you been?””