Gary’s a girl, Kat’s not a cat…

Finding a lost pet in the days or weeks after it goes missing is often difficult. But being reunited four months later is something most owners would have considered almost impossible.

But that’s exactly the happy ending for Gary, who was lost on 6 November 2013 when her owners (yes, Gary’s a female) went on an overseas holiday and organised for someone to feed their cats.

Gary is a feline who craves affection, and her owner – named, ironically, Kat – describes her as “having a loud meow and acting like a shadow, always following you around”. So when Kat left, it seems Gary must have set off to find her.

Returning home two weeks later to find Gary missing, Kat and her family did all the usual things – asking the neighbours, putting up “lost cat” posters around the neighbourhood, and scouring the nearby streets. Crucially, they also registered Gary as being lost with a new, web-based service called Lost Pet Finders.

Gary, meanwhile, was enjoying a holiday of her own, with Marguerite and her husband. They’d found the cat wasn’t microchipped so had no way of knowing Gary belonged to Kat. “And if we handed her over to a pound or a shelter, they’d have focused on trying to rehome her rather than find her original owner,’ Marguerite explained. “And if they couldn’t find a new home… well, Gary’s future would have been pretty bleak. And grown-up cats aren’t as popular as kittens. So we kept her.”

While they grew to love Gary, Marguerite and her husband were always conscious of the fact that someone, somewhere, must love her just as much. So when they discovered Lost Pet Finders they checked for a cat matching Gary’s description – small, black, with a piece missing from one ear – and sure enough, there she was.

They tried to make contact with Kat through the site, but email problems meant the message wasn’t received. Undaunted, Marguerite rang Lost Pet Finders’ owner Tony Ryder, who then telephoned Kat. And within a very short time, Gary and Kat were reunited.

While Marguerite is sad to lose Gary, she’s pleased to be able to reunite an owner with a much-loved pet. “When I realized Gary had been lost a long time, I rang RSPCA again to ask them to look back in their files for missing cats in November of last year but the RSPCA worker refused, saying it was too difficult for her as they run a daily diary and she would have to go back too far,” Marguerite says. “So if it wasn't for a really great description from the owners, and thanks to Lost Pet Finders, I don't think Gary would have ever found her way home”.

Kat, meanwhile, has promised that the next time she takes a holiday, Gary can have another vacation at Marguerite’s.

ends

Contact for further information:           Tony Ryder 1300 725 640

About Lost Pet Finders

Lost Pet Finders (http://lostpetfinders.com.au) is a website which allows an owner to register their dog, cat rabbit or bird as lost. An alert can then be sent to local vets, pounds and other Lost Pet Finders members, all with one click. The site can also be used to send a personally tailored phone message to people in the neighbourhood. The area covered by these services is selected by the owner, and can be as large or as small as they wish.

The website also lists the missing animal or bird, gives and description and can display photographs. Anyone who has found a lost pet can search the site to see if the one they’ve found matches one that’s lost. And – just like with Gary – they’re not limited to searching only messages listed in the last week or so, as would be the case with a local newspaper’s ‘lost and found’, the RSPCA listings, and other databases.

The site has over 12,000 members nationally and the support of thousands of vets and councils.