It’s always heartbreaking when a pet goes missing, but it’s important to not lose hope entirely — sometimes pets return to our lives when we don’t expect them, even years after they disappeared.
That was the miraculous case recently, when a senior cat reunited with his former owner… a whopping 12 years after he went missing!
Back in 2012, a cat named Artie disappeared from his home in Connah’s Quay, Wales. His family looked everywhere, but after months went by they began to lose hope.
“After six months, I reached the point where I thought that either something had happened to him or someone else had taken him in,” owner Theo-Will McKenna told SWNS.
Cut to 2024, when a 16-year-old stray cat wandered into a home garden and wouldn’t move for days. Eventually the homeowners took the cat to the vet, who discovered a microchip.
That chip led them to contact the shelter the cat originated from, the North Clwyd Animal Rescue. Unsure where the cat belonged, the animal rescue posted photos of him on Facebook.
Then, a friend of McKenna saw the post and realized who the cat was — it was long-lost Artie, still alive after 12 long years!
When McKenna got the call from his friend, he truly couldn’t believe it. “It had been 12 years – he went missing when I was 17,” he told SWNS. “I thought no cat could survive 12 years on the street.”
At 16, Artie was now very advanced in age: those years and life on the street made him hard to recognize and McKenna says he “looked so bedraggled and skinny.” It’s not clear where Artie has been all this time — he was found not far from where he originally disappeared.
“It didn’t feel real. I thought there was no way it could be him.”
But NCAR gave the cat some much-needed medical work, and after so much time apart he’s now back living with McKenna, who is making up for lost time and making sure his old friend has a great home for whatever time he has left.
He started a GoFundMe page to help cover Artie’s medication and insurance.
“After 12 years, me and Artie are together again, and he remains a purring machine, sounding like he’s got an engine in his chest the second I’m in the same room as him,” McKenna wrote on GoFundMe.
“He’s such a sweet boy and I want to make sure his twilight years are spent in comfort with him surrounded by love.”
What a miracle these two were reunited after 12 years! We’re so glad Artie is back with his family after all this time and has a loving home to spend his twilight years in.
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