A missing cat has been reunited with his delighted owner, six years after he suddenly disappeared.
Gizmo vanished from owner Zoe Foster’s home in 2014 but miraculously reappeared this month, at a vets eight and a half miles away.
Zoe, from Nottingham, always believed the much-loved cat would come back but thought it was a prank call when the call finally came.
The vet had rang to say the black tabby, who was microchipped and was now nine, was alive and well.
Zoe was delighted to hear she was being reunited with her kitty and lamented that no one had checked for a microchip prior to the vet.
She said: ‘It was really strange I knew he was going to come home. When I got the phone call I could’ve fallen over.
‘I thought someone was going to come out and say “fooled you”.’
When Gizmo first left, Zoe thought he wouldn’t stray far because he was neutered but started to panic when he never returned.
She said: ‘I laid out posters, knocked doors, phoned vets, and phoned Pet Log because he was microchipped.
‘I tried all the sites and missing pages on social media. Nothing was working.
‘It was like he’d vanished. It was really awful. He was only tiny when I got him and he was always by my side.’
When he went missing, Zoe had lived with him for three years.
Zoe still doesn’t know how Gizmo got away, but suspects he hitched a lift.
She added: ‘The next door neighbours were having building work done at the time. Maybe he got in the van and was taken away.
‘Or maybe someone picked him up. It is just a mystery, we don’t know really.’
But throughout the years, Zoe never gave up hope.
Now that she’s got Gizmo back, she is enjoying his company once again.
She said: ‘When I’d driven him home it was the first time I was able to give him a hug.
‘I think he does recognise me. He does look up when I call him and twitches his ears.
‘It will take him a while to settle in because he has been missing so long. He has mellowed since he’s been back.’
Zoe asked the vets about Gizmo’s previous owner and they told her that a woman had come in with the cat hoping to get him neutered.
But the vets told the woman he’d already had the procedure and was also microchiped.
When they pulled up Zoe’s details, the woman realised that Gizmo wasn’t an abandoned cat, but rather a lost one.
She then decided to return Gizmo.
Zoe, who has eight other cats, added: ‘The vets called me and asked if I wanted him back. I said “of course”. He was my baby.
‘The woman never thought to get him checked for a chip. If she had it would’ve been a lot different.’
Zoe advises people who find a cat on the street to take it to a vet straight away for them to check if it’s microchipped.
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