Cat Missing for 6 Months Returns Home ‘Like He Hasn’t Been Gone’
By The story of a missing cat that returned home after 6 months away has amazed the internet.
Shared on Reddit‘s popular r/cats forum on Tuesday, the post now has more than 22,000 upvotes and thousands of comments.
Andrea—who uses the handle RingsOnHerF1ng3rs on Reddit—lives in upstate New York. Her 2-year-old cat Gary went missing in November 2021, but she says she couldn’t help but feel that her cat was out there somewhere.
“He’s always been an outdoor cat so when he’s gone for a few days at a time I don’t sweat it, but after a couple of weeks I started to get nervous. I started putting up flyers and calling everywhere,” She told Newsweek. “Then we got around 4 feet of snow, so I started to accept he might be gone. But I couldn’t shake the feeling he was still alive.”
According to a survey by microchip technology company Peeva, one-third of all dogs and cats in the U.S. will be reported missing in their lifetimes, with more than 80 percent never found.
Results from more than 4,000 participants found that of 733 cats that were reported missing, 704 were never found and only 54 had microchips to help identify them and contact their owners.
When he went missing, Andrea had taken Gary on a trip to visit her father for Thanksgiving. But before they could head home, Gary had gone missing.
As if by magic, six months later Gary the cat waltzed back into her dad’s garage: “My heart stopped when my dad sent me the picture of him in the garage hanging out,” said Andrea.
Amazed by the outcome, Reddit users headed to the comments to share their excitement and similar stories.
One commenter said: “My cat Snugs did the same thing, went missing for an entire year. When does she return? As soon as we get another kitten.”
“Yay! That is amazing,” wrote another Redditor.
“I had a cat go missing for months before too,” said one comment: “He just showed up as if nothing had happened. Cats are wild.”
To add to the incredible story, Andrea says that the night before she had dreamt about the return of her beloved cat. She explained: “It was so vivid. I called my boyfriend crying because it was so real. I dreamt that Gary had come home. I saw him walk in like nothing ever happened—we both thought, ‘yeah that would be nice, I wish.'”
Following Gary’s miraculous reappearance, Andrea got straight on a flight to her dad’s house to bring him home.
“I’m so excited to see him and get him reunited with my boyfriend,” said Andrea: “Plus being able to say ‘I told you so’ to everyone who told me to give up,” she joked.
Gary’s story, while amazing, isn’t a unique one. Last month, a cat in North Wales was found 300 miles from home in an English village after running away from home. In February, a cat in California was reunited with his owners after seven years and a move across the country. Not to be outdone, this cat who went missing in Maine in 2015 was found in Florida earlier this year.