Cat back a year on, a little worse for wear

CHRIS THOMPSON

 

 30/01/2014

 

NINE LIVES: Ellen Callister is relieved to be reunited with her nine-year-old pet cat Cedric, missing for a year.

 

The cat came back - a year later. Cedric the burmese cat has been returned to his "very happy" Coatesville family almost a year to the day since he disappeared.

A massive effort to find Cedric included articles in the Rodney Times and sister paper the North Shore Times. Cedric's owner Claire Callister was inundated with calls - but Cedric stayed missing.
Then a Herald Island resident picked up a wandering cat in Whenuapai about 15 kilometres away and posted some photographs of it on petsonthenet.co.nz. It was Cedric. Sporting a few small injuries, the cat is now back home, bringing closure to a year of worry for the family.

A mishap at a North Shore cattery saw the owner of another chocolate-coloured burmese cat inadvertently walk away with Cedric on January 20, 2013. The cat immediately escaped from that person's Murrays Bay home.

The Callisters returned from summer holiday six days later to find their beloved moggy missing.
They spent hours searching and calling his name and delivered 1500 fliers around the Murrays Bay and Browns Bay area. Emails and messages also went to hundreds of people, and even dirty jeans were used to try to leave a scent for the cat to follow.

Cedric is now recovering from his ordeal with a good dose of rest and care. He has bleached skin, a couple of missing teeth, suspected broken bones and a hoarse meow. Claire's sister, a vet, checked the cat over and thinks he might have broken ribs and a broken jaw. But she won't be sure until he is X-rayed when he is a bit calmer. "One of his biggest risks is he might develop diabetes from overeating because obviously he's quite thin, so we're feeding him small and often," Claire says.
She says the family stayed hopeful but after a year thought Cedric might have been killed by a car or dog.

It appears he hadn't stopped calling for his family. "It was almost like he was hoarse because the the first thing we realised the next day was that he had this squeaky meow." Cedric's discovery has renewed a special relationship between the cat and Claire's daughter Ellen, 21.
Claire thanks all who helped in the search and those who offered other assistance.

She's also grateful to petsonthenet.co.nz for helping bring Cedric back. They picked him up on Friday.

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