Goes to show that you never know.
Our pedigree snow leopard cat went missing on Aug 5th. Unlike him as he had wandered happily around the immediate area for over two of his three and a half years .
We live in a densely wooded area with overgrown fields on all sides . There are maybe twelve houses within a 400 yard radius .
On the 6 Aug. we were told by one who lives right on the edge of that radius that he ( Murray ) had spent the afternoon in her garden but as he had no collar on ( I found it in the grass midway between mine and their house ) she did not pick him up or secure him. On the 7 Aug I spent the day scouring that area and further afield but couldn't find him . I did speak to two other neighbours who told me that they had seen him at their houses on the evening of the 5th . That was the last sighting we knew off and as the days passed we kept searching but our hopes of finding him dwindled . My wife wouldn't give up though and used every local and not so local social media websites to spread the word that he was missing along with numerous photos to show his striking appearance . Posters were put up all around the area with all contact details but no sightings were reported.
Then we offered a handsome reward .........
I got a call on the evening of the 15 Aug asking if he was still missing and was then told that one of these three people had posted a sighting on " whats app " whatever that is ....Now this person had my mobile number but didn't call it . I and my wife followed up the sighting at the exact point wading through scrub, gorse nettles and rough rough ground but found nothing . After an hour in the driving rain we gave up disappointed but a little happier that he at least had been seen.
Just as we were getting into our cars my wife got a call from that same person that he had spent the afternoon in her garden of the 5 Aug to say that she had him and to come and collect him.
I drove the 3/4 mile to her house to collect Murray dreading what he would be like after living rough for 11 days and just completing a 3/4 mile walk across dense wet scrubland ,across a muddy stream and three fields of gorse,ferns and weeds up to my thighs and all in heavy rain .......
He was bone dry ,smelling fresh with an immaculate coat , a little thinner and distraught but remarkably , nay miraculously , fit and well.
This lady suggested the the BBQ that they were enjoying in the driving rain and strong wind must have attracted him , she showed no concern for him jumping up on their very expensive furnishings in their rather valuable property even though he had supposedly been living rough and feral for days ....
We kept our suspicions to ourselves and left with the cat.
We later, forensically , went over all that we had been told , witnessed and heard and concluded, without any doubt ,that a cabal of four houses and eight adults had kept ,as in stolen , him , lied to us when they met us many times out searching for him and then panicked when the social media coverage had swamped the town and surrounding area . The offer of a reward tipped the balance as if discovered they would have been shamed in the local community .
I haven't listed all the bullet points that drew us to that conclusion but there were many with equal numbers of " coincidences " rendering the sequence of events ,reported times and sightings implausible at best .
I should add that throughout the whole debacle the only three people who seen him on the day of his disappearance were the only three people who saw him on the day of his return , in the same sequence too. From something that was said to us we think the cat was destined for a son in Cork sixty miles away but for whatever reason that fell through and rather than destroy it they thankfully decided to choreograph it's return to us.
Although delighted to have him back I cannot forgive them for the suffering and anxiety that they caused my wife over and above the distress that the cat suffered too.
No reward was given and my wife wants no confrontation to occur , but I'll have a wee word in a quiet place with two of the husbands .......
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Topic: Good neighbours ... some are , some aren't . (Read 2075 times)