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A loving cat missing from her Manor Park, Sheffield, UK home for two years has been reunited with her petmom thanks to a shelter’s feral cat TNR program.
Staff at South Yorkshire animal charity Rain Rescue say it became clear early on that Roxie was no feral after she was trapped and brought in one day last week through the organization’s Operation Feral program. She showed herself to be loving and tame.
A routine microchip scan found Roxie’s chip and allowed the rescue to contact her petmom, Tracey Hartley.
Tracey came in and collected her long-lost cat the same day and says she had trouble believing her beloved cat had really been found.
Roxie has lost weight and appears to have been living rough for at least part of the time she was gone. She initially felt at odds with Tracey’s other cats after coming home but is adjusting and settling back in.
The Sheffield Star reported on the story and visited Tracey and Roxie at their home.
Tracey told the paper she searched desperately for her missing cat after Roxie disappeared in 2013, checking shelters to see if she had turned up and was in care. When she heard from Rain Rescue that Roxie had been found, she was stunned, and later told the Star for their story: “I had to ask twice if the charity had got it correct because I was that shocked, I couldn’t believe it.
“The same day we made arrangements to go and pick her back up. At first when she got back home Roxy started spitting at me, and the other cats she wasn’t too keen on, but she has settled down now. I don’t know how she has survived really – she is a lot thinner than how she used to be in the past. I was gutted when she had gone. I rang everybody I could think of to try to find her, but eventually I had to give up hope.”
Roxie was found a couple of miles from home, on the other side of a busy highway.
Sue Utley, cat co-ordinator for Rain Rescue, told the Star: “We were able to see she had been missing since 2013 from Sheffield S2 – two years later and we found her in S9.
“It is absolutely amazing. If only animals could talk, then we’d know what she had been through. What we are trying to get across to people is that microchipping does work, if the details are kept up to date. If we hadn’t been doing this trap, neuter and release scheme then she might never have been found.”
