Any positive stories of missing cats coming home?
UPDATE: He's home!!!
He came back while we were putting out more hoover contents to help with scent.
I had the longest ugly cry while he ignored me and ate lots of biscuits! He then wanted to go out again! He soon found out how grounded he is!
We have trackers on the way and the subscription setup for both our cats, just deciding whether to go the catio route, but either way, hopefully we won't need to worry about them going missing!
All of the pets are currently on the bed and I've never felt so relieved and content in my life.
I literally skipped along taking the missing posters down!
Also, I would like to thank everybody for all your stories and well wishes. Honestly, you don't understand how much the responses have meant to me. That you took the time out of your day to help an internet stranger feel less scared.
I am wanting to reply to everyone, because I feel it's only fair when you took the time to respond, but it's currently almost 1am and I am not in the most awake state to reply! But I wanted to let everyone know he's back safe!
Thank you so much everyone 🫶
Tl;Dr: has anyone got positive stories of a cat who is usually in every night going walkabouts for 3-4 days and coming back?
This is a bit embarrassing, but I'm a man in my 30s and I've been crying over my missing cat for the past couple of days.
He's been missing since Monday at 2pm. He's only ever been away overnight once when he was being looked after by a relative when we were away.
The only thing I can think is that we went away on Saturday, so he was with a relative, but he was in on Sunday, and Monday morning, so I'm not sure it's that.
There is a field in front of our house and he loves to play on it, there is a main road beyond the woods on the field but I've never seen him cross it.
On the Monday night when I was looking at about 9pm there was a cat fight near our house. Found the other cat but not ours. He's been in fights before and always comes home.
He's really skittish around other people, so I can't believe that he would have just gone into a car/van.
It's been about 3 days now and I'm at my wits end. Constant panic attacks, I get upset when I put the food out for my other cat or see pictures of our cat. I've literally taken time off work because I genuinely can't focus and I'm panicking all the time.
We've done everything I can think of:
Told the local vets (he is microchipped and neutered)
Added a Facebook post for residents of the area
Knocked on doors asking for them to look in sheds/garages
Walked around a small area nearby with treats at 4am each morning.
Walked around a larger search radius at different times. There are lots of woods near us so have been through all of them the best I can.
Put posters up and leaflets through doors.
Left a blanket out over 2 nights, emptied the hoover contents onto the front garden, left tuna out.
We bought a ring doorbell just to see if he's coming back and being sneaky, but there's just no sightings of him at all.
That's what's worrying me. In positive stories there are usually sightings. He's basically just disappeared entirely. I see stories where people say that their cat was in a shed or garage and they heard them, but I've been around the estate at least 10 times at different times and I haven't heard anything. I'm really worried he's out there sick and scared, or trapped somewhere. We had an airtag on him but he always ripped it off and I hate myself for not getting a proper tracker. He always usually comes back every couple of hours and he's usually indoors most of the time nowadays.
I just can't be positive, and it's getting to the point that I'm just not eating. I can't think of anything else to do, but just waiting feels horrible. I know it's unlikely he would come back during the day, so I feel like I'm just sitting waiting for night to come in-between my looking around.
Has anyone got any positive stories of cats going walkabouts for 3-4 days and being fine? I'm not sure if I'm just overreacting. I'm going to be building a catio because my heart can't take stress like this.