I had a cat go missing nearly two years ago now. Despite being chipped, and all the searching, posting on websites, posters up everywhere, there were no sightings, no corpse, no nothing. My new cat went off for a couple of days recently, and I was panicing -he's back now, phew. Anyway, when out searching for him, I got talking to someone who said that cats regularly get stolen. My cat that disappeared was a real beauty, beautiful pure grey coat, gorgeous dark eyes - sort of expensive looking.

I never thought, though, that he might have been stolen. Has anyone heard of cat stealing? Why would someone do this? Alfie looked expensive, but he was a moggy really, not worth money

I still miss Alfie, he was a right character. I hate that there has never been any closure.

Yes sometimes, to sell on, for bait etc.

But more commonly they just find a home with tastier food, people think they're a stray and move them in.

You certainly hear rumours - these days its dog baiters, back in the '80s it was for research labs, in the '70s it was furriers and there's always been rumours about them going into take-aways

I'm not so convinced though, those rumours sound a bit urban legendy to me. I can see a bengal or ragdoll would have a value but without pedigree certification they would only be saleable for a fraction of their true worth.
Sadly I expect a lot of cats do get killed a fair distance from their homes so their owners never find out. My sisters cat ate something poisonous and died in a neighbours garden - luckily he knew the cat and let my sister know, but obviously she could've died on waste ground or where she was unknown.
Anyway lets not dwell on that and hope Alfie simply got very lost and was adopted by someone nice.

Some cats do come home or are found even after years. If you have a picture. You never know. With his colour in he sounds lovely there's more chance he was taken in. I have a pure grey rescue that I will never let out incase he gets stolen too. Once the dustbin man asked me how much for the grey one, I said he ain't going anywhere

Every single one of ours is a stray (all 4), none was chipped, and put notices in shop windows, bulletin boards in supermarkets etc.. No one ever phoned to say they had a missing cat. Saying that though we moved 20 miles and one of our cats would keep going back to the old house, after about 5 times of this happening, we decided that the new owners of the house may as well keep him, which they were happy to. So you just never know how far a cat has actually travelled.

It's very common for people to take in cats that they think are strays, but are actually not. I did once. It didn't occur to me to take him to the vet to look for a microchip - there were no 'Missing' posters up, none of the local rescues had had any calls from him, nobody seemed to be looking for him. A few months later I took him to the vet for jabs and found out he did have a microchip, and had gone missing from about 4 miles away, outside the range of the posters.

I'm sure your first kitty has a new and loving home, especially since he sounds so beautiful. Have you thought about getting a collar with your name and number on it for the new cat?

Particularly agree with the BIBs. If it is a particularly pretty cat, some jerk may decide to give their kids a free pet but more likely and just as sadly, they'll have been hit by a car and either go and curl up somewhere dark and hidden and pass on or they are removed by the dustmen or even by a well-meaning person who buries it. Or perhaps it is taken to a vet where it is pts because of injuries and unless there is a microchip or collar, there's no chance of notifying the owners.

This is far more likely than falling into the hands of baiters or whatever the bastard du jour is.

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. This story is on our local newspaper's web site. The theft was caught on CCTV.

Thanks for your replies. I will probably never know what happened to Alfie, but do hope he made his way into a loving home somewhere.

How anyone could be cruel to a cat I really can't comprehend

People let their cats out at that age? If they were watching it I wouldn't say so much...But I don't understand why it was out at that age.

my cat is missing right now and has been since Sunday night. not knowing is the worst , if she had been hit by a car or something like that id rather know and be able to move on than worry and have false hope. cats are members of the family , how sick can you be to hurt a cat. they are more animals than the cats themselves. if she comes back i don't think either of us would want her to go back out , i can't go through this again. i have a 5 month old kitten Salem and having him makes it a little better , it would have been strange if there wasn't a cat here while Jessie is missing.

I don't thinks it's always a matter of being cruel.

I mean if my dog caught an killed a cat in my back garden, I would not own up for fear of my dog being pts.
I imagine many are hit on the roads and fatally injured and just crawl off and die where people cannot find them.

If you allow a cat out unsupervised then you have to accept that you may never see it again.

Years ago I had an all black cat. Someone I knew who ran kennells and did a lot of work for Cats Protection told me to be very careful about letting her out as all black and all white cats were often stolen for the fur trade. My cat did go missing when she was about 18 months old. I never found out what happened.

It doesn't happen so much with our current cats, but our older animals used to happily disappear for a week to live with holiday cottage renters who would spoil them rotten. They'd come back to us fatter, tunring their noses up at their normal food.

One of our girls eventually disappeared, and as we'd had trouble getting her to like our new kitten we somewhat expected it. She'd spent longer and longer away, and the comments book in one holiday cottage said something about being in love with the 'stray' tortie that kept visiting.

I felt very guilty as it was my kitten that drove her away, though we tried our best ot integrate her, and our other cat accepted her. I was more than annoyed when my sister got a new kitten after her cat died. My kitten had turned into a cat by then and had a lot of trouble accepting her, and my sister wanted my cat turfed out if they couldn't get along!

This site lists lost, found, and cats that have been found dead. Some of the ads are years old so presumably the owners are still wondering. It's worth looking through because the not knowing is worse. Click on Found Cat and search by post code.

http://mymoggy.com/index.asp

Op, one of my cats, neutered male, went missing for 2 years and then suddenly turned up on my balcony.

Some people don't like other people's cats messing in their gardens, scratching their plants up etc.

They leave their car boots or doors open, cat goes in for a nap and they wake up in a forest or wood many miles away.

That wouldn't necessarily solve the 'problem' because most cat lovers go and get another cat some time after the loss or death of a beloved cat. Not all but most. My house feels empty without a cat. Evil and malicious neighbours can't keep getting rid of cats in such a way, they'd soon get found out - and prosecuted for animal cruelty.

Most cats keep away from strange cars anyway, they're not daft.

How come there are frequent reports of cats being found in car engines and removal lorries?

Not that frequent. When it does happen (and of course it does occasionally) it makes a good media story. Cats are nosey by nature and I can definitely see them wanting to explore a removal lorry - but how often do neighbours move? My own cats are quite interested in having a look around my own car (when I unpack shopping) but they have no interest in other people's cars.

I've yet to see a 'supervised' cat .. cat's will roam and do as they please

Here's some CCTV footage of an Edinburgh cat-stealer in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-cbVSMuX9E

Story:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/cctv-re...olen-1-1776151

Happy ending:

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.co...blue-1-1797603

suppose if its a pedigree Cat there is more chance of it being stolen than the avenge moggie.

There seems to be more cases of cat-napping in the media now. Reported in my local newspaper recently, someone actually broke into a house and stole a couple of young cats. My guess is as dog owners have become more wary of dog-knapping then the criminals have found it easier to target expensive breeds of cats.

Well I have a sad story for you. We moved house six months ago. Brought three girls, two who we have had ten years since kittens, got them both the same day. Well a few weeks ago Isa was struck by a car in front of us and died instantly. As if that wasn't upsetting enough Bella then vanished about a week later and has not been home sice. While she has always been a 'wanderer' she always came home after a few days - a couple weeks before she had not been seen for nine days and came home one day looking well groomed; she is a beautiful dainty tortie - I am hoping someone has innocently 'catnapped' her, thinking she is a stray. Maybe even shut her in hoping that Bella will adopt them... she is microchipped, I've checked pets4homes and council strays and even asked the council if they'd picked up any dead animals fitting her description which they said they hadn't. Have printed out 200 odd B&W flyers to letterbox post and then 20 odd colour A5 ones for lamp posts

if she had decided to move away as a result the upset of balance from Isa dying that would be easier to bear then her bizarrely also dying so soon after her sister

there are a couple of paranoid ideas around this odd neighbour having catnapped her for spite - I wrote a note to the young lad who killed her, just saying you've hit and killed our cat, we are devasted, please slow down - and this odd woman came and spoke to me about this note I'd misdelivered, half cut in the daytime, was a bit peculiar. I dunno.

Here she is -
http://i39.tinypic.com/67ib2o.jpg

I remember when i was younger one of our cats (my favourite at the time) went missing and i was heartbroken. What made it worse os we found out he had been hit by a car a few streets away and someone had found him, thought it was their cat and buried him in their garden! When their cat returned they realised they had buried the wrong cat.

Im not entirely convinced as how would they realise to contact us to let us know? Unless of course they dug him up and read his id collar? If that was the case why didnt they offer to return him to us? To this day it angers me that hes buried in a strangers garden whereas all our other pets are in mums garden.