When the thin cat arrived at a care home in Torquay, the residents made a fuss of her and took care of her.
But people in charge of the complex said she could not stay for health and safety reasons and telephoned the local animal rescue service, who found a micro-chip dated 2002 and registered in York.
An RSCPA officer went to visit the York address but found the owner had moved away around six years before.
Cyril, the Torquay cat has now been renamed Molly. She has moved in with a foster carer and is doing very well with her new family. We'll never know why Cyril set out on her journey. She didn't find her adopted person. But a happy ending came after her epic journey on foot.
In the wild, salmon follow the smell of their home waters. Birds and bees appear to navigate by the sun, stars, and moon. It's hard to understand how so many lost dogs and cats find their way back to their owners over great distances.
Lesley and Donny McElhiney's home in Appleton, Wisconsin, wasn't the same after their one-year-old tabby Emily disappeared. But she didn't just disappear, she went on a 4,500-mile adventure! It seems Emily was on her evening prowl when she found herself on a truck to Chicago inside a container of paper bales. From there she was shipped to Belgium, finally arriving in France where employees at a laminating company found her thin and thirsty. Since she was wearing tags, it didn't take long for Emily to be reunited with her family, compliments of Continental Airlines.
The Hicks family wanted their cat to be lovingly cared for while they went on an extended vacation overseas. So, they took him to stay with relatives who lived more than 1,000 miles away. Months later, when they returned to retrieve Howie, they were told that he had run away. The Hicks were distraught, assuming that because Howie was an indoor cat, he wouldn't have the survival skills to make it on his own. A year later, their daughter returned home from school one day and saw a mangy, unkempt, and starving cat. Yep, it was Howie. It had taken him 12 months to cross 1,000 miles of Australian outback, but Howie had come home. You can see more stories here.
Soon, she became part of our lives as my children approached their teenage years. Blanc insisted on walking with me along the beach every day, although she remained in the sand-hills above. But her adventurous spirit led her into trouble. One day she didn't come home. After two weeks, hope dwindled at ever seeing her again.
One day, the family were in the ½ acre back yard. A scrawny, ill cat dragged herself in and sunk onto the ground in a sphinx-like pose. It was Blanc—paws and elbows worn and bleeding, coat matted and showing signs of diarrhea. The vet told us that would have been caused by eating lizards to keep herself alive.
Here's what we worked out: Blanc had climbed into a surfer's wagon outside our yard beside the local garage. The driver had unwittingly taken her to the next town, Kingston, many miles away, which took about half an hour to drive. She must have escaped there to make her way home. After loving care, Blanc revived to her former glory and place in our home.