After another sleepless night I got up and tried calling my cat again. I whistled and shouted but nothing. I had been concerned because when I saw him on Thursday night his chin looked strange and slightly swollen. I had decided to take him to the vets but now it was two days later and him going missing made this impossible.

A woman had contacted me to say she was his previous owner. She had not abandoned him but he had gone astray and although they had searched for months after leaving they had not found him. It was only when I put a missing post on Facebook about him that she spotted him and realised it was her old cat. With her and her husband’s help we managed to  walk over rough ground round the backs of houses and flats. It was actually this lady who spotted the cat in a little hutch in a back garden. There was a bowl of water and some food nearby. When we called to him “our” cat came out but was very lethargic and just sat staring at us. It was clearly our (both of us) cat. At that point another neighbour came round the corner and climbed the fence to get the cat. It leapt over the fence and scurried off and into my garden through the hedge.

Off I went to try and catch him. The woman and her husband followed and together we got the cat into a cat carrier. I told them I would take him to the vets as he was looking really poorly. We all agreed that he should stay with me as I’d been looking after him for the last 6 years but I realised she was really upset to part with him again. I don’t think I would have been able to find him without her and her husbands help.

Eventually I made an emergency vets appointment. The vet saw he had an abscess in his jaw and gave my cat a shot of long lasting antibiotics. I also have painkiller liquid to give him. Now it’s just a case of keeping him in for a while. At the moment he’s fast asleep!…