Fergus went missing from his home in Forres, Scotland, in late 2010. Now, he’s back home after rescuers found him 80 miles away in Aberdeen, located on the eastern coast. The big gray tabby was surviving as a stray near a recycling center.
Since Fergus was so far away from home, rescuers think he must have hitched a ride, but only the cat knows for sure. He went from one coast of the northeast part of Scotland to the other.
Image via Cats Protection
Fergus Had a Microchip the Whole Time
For eleven years, Fergus was walking around with a microchip. If anyone had checked, they would have been able to connect him with his human mom, Fiona Mutter.
Recently, a volunteer from the Cats Protection charity did just that, bringing Fergus in to be checked. They found Fergus wandering near the recycling center, but maybe he had been indoors before that? We’ll never know.
Soon afterward, Mutter got the phone call of a lifetime!
“It was such a surprise to get the call that Fergus was alive,” Mutter told the BBC.
Images: Fiona Mutter, Cats Protection, YouTube
All those years, she believed her beloved kitty had come to a sad end. However, Fergus was managing quite well it seems.
“He was always prone to wandering and would sometimes go off for a few days at a time, but one day he just never came back. We sadly assumed something had happened to him,” she added.
Fergus with Fiona Mutter
Fergus Goes Home After 11 Years
When Fergus came home, he was “very tired and sleepy the first night,” Mutter told STV News. (see video below) After that, he was doing much better.
Now, Mutter thinks her kitty probably lived in another home, seeing how healthy and happy he appears.
“His coat is so shiny, and he’s so friendly that there’s no way he has been living outside all this time,” she said. “Someone has been taking good care of him.”
Although he did just fine out there somewhere, Fergus is very happy to be home again.
“When he returned home, we put him in the spare bedroom where it was quiet so he could get used to being in the house, and then introduced him slowly to our other cat, Ozzy. He was soon happy to be handled and stroked; he has such a loud purr. I did buy him a cat bed but he prefers lying on the actual bed.”
Thanks to the Cats Protection Volunteer
In her interview with STV News, Mutter thanks the volunteer who brought Fergus in to be checked.
“We are extremely grateful to the Cats Protection volunteer who went above and beyond to get Fergus home.”
Long ago, the same organization saved Fergus as a kitten.
“We adopted Fergus as a kitten from Cats Protection, and he’d been with us for four years before he disappeared,” Mutter said.
Now, at 15, he will catch up on all the cuddles he lost and live with his new sibling Ozzy, the other cat in the home.
“He settled in really, really well. He’s getting on with our other cat. They’re perfectly happy. It’s like he’s never been away.”
Video by STV News:
The Time is Meow in Scotland
Certainly, this is one more story of why microchipping pets is so important.
Last year, Cats Protection launched a groundbreaking “The Time is Meow” campaign in Scotland. Due to the pandemic, they saw a rise in unscrupulous breeders as people looked for feline companions. Now, they are working to stop the problem and get all pet cats microchipped.
“A five-point action plan includes compulsory microchipping for pet cats, a ban on snares, encouraging landlords to let renters have cats, inclusion of animal welfare in the National Curriculum, and more work to tackle unscrupulous breeding,” reported the National.
Alice Palombo of Cats Protection expressed concern that Scotland may be left behind when the legislation is first introduced in England this year.
“With compulsory microchipping for pet cats in England due to be introduced in 2022, we’re concerned that cats in Scotland may be left behind,” Palombo said.
“We’re calling on the Scottish Government to introduce regulations to make microchipping of pet cats compulsory in Scotland.”
According to the charity, there are 785,000 “owned cats” in Scotland or one for almost every seven people. Even so, “too many cats continue to be victims of cruelty, neglect or poor welfare.”
