Lucie Warrington had just finished a client call when she got a text from her husband a year ago, telling her she’d better sit down.
The vet, unable to contact Lucie, had called to deliver the news that they had found her long-lost cat Leo; missing-presumed-dead since 2014.
His disappearance happened after Lucie moved to Rome temporarily with her husband Stu, leaving her pet cats, brothers Leo and Lewis, with a friend’s sister.
‘Four days after we got to Rome, my friend Helen rang me and said her sister was devastated; Leo had gone missing after a day,’ remembers Lucie.
Knowing Leo was a wanderer, she reassured the catsitter that he’d soon be back. However, after a week, he still hadn’t returned and her friend’s sister was so wracked with guilt and distress, that Helen decided to look after the remaining cat, Lewis.
Lucie, a film producer from Leeds, tried to convince herself that Leo had simply gone off to live with a little old lady somewhere, but deep down she thought her beloved pet had probably been hit by a car.
Then, a week later, she received another heartbreaking call from Helen – Lewis had been run over.
‘Within two weeks of being in Rome, both cats were apparently dead. It was horrendous,’ remembers Lucie, 44. ‘I spent a whole day crying. I also felt guilty; we’d gone to live in Rome and left someone else to look after the cats. We swore immediately that we would never have a cat again. We couldn’t cope with it. It was just too upsetting’.
The years went by and the couple wanted another pet, but not wanting to repeat history, they decided to get a dog and in 2020, after months of gruelling lockdown misery, the couple got a Romanian rescue, followed by another one six months later.
‘Dogs stay with you and you take them on walks. But cats up and leave; we wouldn’t want to keep a cat inside the house or face the risk of them getting run over,’ she reasons.
But then last year, Lucie got the call to tell her that Leo was still alive.
She says: ‘My husband said: “They’ve got Leo”.’ I said: “No they’ve not. He’s dead.”’
A quick call to the vet revealed otherwise and it emerged that Leo had been living as a female cat under an assumed name at Lancaster Park petting farm near Oldham.
The farmer’s dad, who has since passed away, had a cat called Jess, who went missing. When she never came back, Leo apparently took her place and the farmer’s daughter was none-the-wiser, until she took ‘Jess’ to the vet about a limp.
While there, she asked them to scan Leo’s microchip so her father’s details could be removed, but Lucie’s information appeared instead.
The vet asked Lucie if she wanted Leo back.
‘I thought “God, no”. Our rescue dogs are scared of everything – including cats. And Leo is 14 – it wouldn’t be fair to re-home him. We live in a different house from the one he left.’
Happily, the farmer wanted to keep him and Lucie was invited to visit.
When she went to see him after nine years, Lucie was overjoyed to see Leo coexisting happily with sheep, goats and tortoises – and bedding down with the rabbits each night – and immediately burst into tears.
‘The farmer initially thought I was crying because I wanted him back. It was all very emotional. Then Leo just followed us around while we explored the farm. He was always a friendly cat, but I like to think he recognised me.’
Lucie learned Leo had probably arrived on the farm in 2019, but she still doesn’t know how he turned up at a location 20 miles away from where he went missing, or what happened in the five years between.
‘What did he do during that time? Where did he go? That little old lady I told myself he’d gone to live with must have been involved at some point. Was he adopted by someone who moved or died? What adventures did he have?’
While Lucie will never know, she says she was relieved to see her cat back from the dead, looking healthy and happy, and enjoying his lovely home life on the farm.
‘He looked so young still; really healthy and happy. It was so cute. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew. They were all in tears. It was just an amazing turn of events.
‘It’s like a children’s story where you say a pet has gone to live on a farm, rather than admit they’re dead. But this actually did happen, which still makes us laugh.
Even though we haven’t seen him for a while, I hope Leo is still around and living his best life.’
After finding out her much-loved cat was still here – and that she was allowed to visit whenever she wanted – Lucie left a message with Helen, who burst into tears and told her sister that Leo was alive and kicking.
‘When I left I didn’t feel sad leaving him there,’ she says. ‘Because of the set up; there were so many other animals to play with; he just seemed really happy.It didn’t feel weird to leave him; it felt right.’
How to find your lost cat according to an expert
Louise Davies, from Animals Lost and Found in Gloucestershire, has years of experience reuniting lost pets – helping owners find one cat that had been gone for more than a decade.
- Firstly, check your own home, garden, and the immediate vicinity thoroughly. Cats seldom stray far, but some of them have a positive genius for getting shut in sheds, garages, cars, greenhouses.
- Knock on neighbours’ doors and ask them to checksheds/garages/outhouses while you wait in case your cat has got shut in. Ask them to prop open doors.
- Your cat recognises the smell of home. Spread hoover contents around the outside of your house. Put your cat’s dirty litter try outside too. Hang dirty washing on your line, put smelly trainers in your garden with any cat bedding.
- Go out looking at night to check, when it is quiet and there is less traffic. Work your way back towards home as you call them, so not to inadvertently lead them further away
- Repeat these steps. Scared cats go into survival mode and may not even respond to their owner at first.
- Make posters/fliers and put them up anywhere and everywhere
- Alert all vets in the area and give them a description of your cat and ask them to display posters
- Share your cat to any local lost and found pets’ pages, on national lost cat pages, on the Facebook pages of any local cat rescue groups, on local vets and larger community groups. Always include your post code and a mobile contact number.
- Contact your local vets weekly. If your cat is chipped, contact the chip company to ensure they have your correct and up to date contact details, especially your telephone numbers. Don’t wait for them to come to you.
- If your cat is pedigree (or looks like one!), check Gumtree and other ‘free’ selling sites just in case your cat has been stolen.
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