A family have been reunited with their much-loved cat – nine years after it disappeared.
Fran Henriquez was stunned to receive a phone call from animal rescue charity the Scottish SPCA saying they had found her tabby cat George, who she assumed had died years previously.
Now the 14-year-old is settling back into home life with Fran, husband Billy and their two children in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire.
Fran said the cat – who was identified through having a microchip – is exactly how they remembered him, and was happy to share space with the family’s other feline, Freddy.
The Henriquez family owned George for four years, having taken him in after the stray was treated by the vet where Fran’s mum worked.
He vanished in 2016. The family had long given up hope of seeing him again, until the Scottish SPCA called Ms Henriquez earlier this month.
She told Scotland News: “They phoned and said they had my cat and my first thought was ‘that’s weird, my cat is on the sofa right now’.
“Then they said the microchip said his name is George and I thought ‘it can’t be him!’ It’s a bit of a miracle.”
She travelled to the animal charity’s Glasgow base to collect him and found George “more or less fine, save for some matted fur and bad teeth”.
The charity found George while collecting other animals in Glasgow.
Ms Henriquez said: “He is exactly how we remember him. He’s friendly and gentle, and so relaxed at home.
“Our elder child remembered him from when he lived here but our younger son had only heard of poor George that went missing so they were both thrilled and have been fussing over him ever since.”
Fran and Billy put up posters when George disappeared in 2016 and asked neighbours to keep a look out. They also searched nearby rural areas.
Fran recalled: “He was a cat that could go outside, but he would always be home for breakfast, no matter what. So when he didn’t appear we knew something wasn’t right.
“We had a few red herrings of people saying they had seen him but it was another cat – eventually we assumed something must have happened to him and we felt he couldn’t be alive.”
The Scottish SPCA said the discovery showed the importance of microchipping animals, as it campaigns for compulsory cat chipping to be implemented in Scotland.
Fran, meanwhile, is just enjoying spending time with her pet once again.
She added: “It’s a bit bittersweet as he is now an elderly cat and we have missed most of his life.
“But hopefully we can give him a really nice retirement.”
