Missing cat reunited with owner after 10 years
Pet Harry turns up healthy and happy a decade after disappearing
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Your support makes all the difference.After Mark Salisbury’s pet disappeared 10 years ago, he never could quite bring himself to believe the missing cat had gone for good.
His faith, it turns out, has been rewarded. A decade on, Harry has just turned up happy and healthy.
The cat was taken into an Ipswich branch of animal charity Blue Cross after an elderly man who had been looking after him passed away, the BBC reported.
When staff scanned the ginger and white’s microchip, they traced him back to Mr Salisbury – now living 180 miles away in Gloucestershire.
“So happy,” is how the owner described feeling at being reunited with his pet. "And surprised.".
Mr Salisbury, now in his early 40s, was living in Ipswich when he bought Harry and his brother from a local farm, the BBC reports.
"He didn't turn up one day when I was calling the pair of them in," he recalled. "His brother, who was always a hooligan, his behaviour changed markedly – he was very shy, wasn't keen on going out and became very clingy."
After searching for the lost kitten for a year, Mr Salisbury almost gave up hope when he moved out of the area but could never bring himself to cancel the microchip.
"Every time I moved home I would email the firm and update them," he said. “But after 10 years, you think that's it and you make peace with that.”
Harry is now living with Mr Salisbury's mother Carolyn Clark, as he thinks reintroducing the cat to his brother after 10 years would be unfair.
"Harry the cat adores living with us now," said Ms Clark. "Eventually we will let him go out and - hopefully - come back to us."
It is not the first time microchipping has led to cats being traced after considerable time away. In 2016, Londoners Marna Gilligan and Sean Purdy received an email telling them their moggie, called Moon Unit, had turned up eight years after disappearing - in Paris.
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