(Credits: Sophie Carty/PA Wire)
A woman whose cat went missing in November found her four months later more than 300 miles away — in a different country.
Sophie Carty, was ‘devastated’ when Luna disappeared from her home in Darlington in County Durham.
The 25-year-old spent weeks searching for her pet and after heavy snow and storms hit the country she feared the worst.
In March, however, she was amazed to receive a call saying that Luna had been found alive, locked in a shed at a hotel in Inverness, Scotland, a six-hour drive north across the border.
She had been taken to a local vet where her microchip was scanned, revealing Sophie’s contact details.
Sophie described her shock at hearing the news.
She said: ‘After four months of heartache, I received a call from Highland Vet Referrals saying Luna had been brought into the surgery, and she was alive and doing well, despite being very thin.
‘I was inconsolable and asked where she was, that’s when the vet told me she was in Inverness in Scotland.
(Picture: Sophie Carty/PA Wire)
‘I couldn’t believe it, that was around a six-hour drive from where Luna went missing. We travelled the long journey to collect her and brought her home.’
Luna was in a ‘fragile’ state when she returned, and was suffering from malnourishment, an infection and suspected nerve damage.
‘On her first couple of nights home, Luna was in a very bad way, very tired and looked to be paralysed on her back end,’ Sophie said.
‘However, after a trip to the vets, antibiotics and painkillers, she is like a new cat.
‘She is up and moving (with assistance) and is happy to be home with us. She’s getting loads of cuddles and attention, which she isn’t complaining about.’
She said she had ‘no clue’ how Luna had managed to get to Inverness.
‘We had theories of her hopping in a caravan or delivery van or the theory that she was stolen and was found to have been spayed then thrown out,’ she said.
‘But I like to think she just fancied a little Highland holiday. We may never know how she managed to end up there, if only they could speak.’
Sophie appealed to other pet owners to make sure their pets are microchipped, and that their details are up to date.
‘It is so easy for cats to go walkabout, be picked up, or hop in the back of a van and travel miles,” she said.
‘If it wasn’t for her microchip, we would have never seen her again. Please make sure your details are up to date, because you never know when your cat might hitch a lift to visit Loch Ness.’
Since June 2024, all pet cats in England are required by law to be microchipped before they are 20 weeks old, with their owners’ contact details stored and kept up to date with a pet microchipping database.
Luna’s micro-chip details had been registered with the Petlog lost-and-found database.
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