I saw two men in the field behind our house this morning carrying a sack, it was 7.30am and luckily i'm very suspicious because when i aproached them I saw the sack moving.
When I asked what they had they opened the sack and out jumped my cat and they walked off as if nothing had happened, I could almost understand if they were kids but they were both in their late 30s or even early 40s.
I'm sitting here spoiling Jake our cat rotten and wondering why on earth two grown men would be stealing cats??

Steve

Having heard yesterday of one of my dogs pups being stolen out of his kennel in the space of 5 minutes after walk and before feeding, I can believe anything.

I can't think of a positive reason to steal a cat, only awful ones.  Thank goodness you had the sense to approach them.

Have you phoned the police?  I would also phone the local paper to get a story in to warn other locals.

Rang police who were suprisingly very concerned and sent someone around within the hour, didn't think of local paper shall do so now.

Thanks
          Steve

Where abouts are you Steve just so others in the same area can be extra vigilante.So pleased your cat is ok.

Sue

hi Devo

Your message came at a very upsetting time for me and my family. our little cat Tom (9 months) went missing 16 days ago. he came home last nite at about 1 am and he is in a right state - he is that thin that he can hardly walk. we took him to the vets and she said that he had been locked up somewhere because he was covered in tics (poor love). My hubbie had to stay up with him all last nite cos every time we left him he cried.
this is not the first cat that we hav had that has gone missing for over two weeks and then returned home in the middle of the nite extremely thin and unfortunately we are starting to think that it could possibly be one of our neighbours(who hates them)doing this awful thing to them. they both came back just in time for them to not die of starvation.

we are just grateful that he is home and seems to be happy

Mel

Steve,

The two men were probably taking your cat to train terriers/bullterriers with.
You are very lucky to have seen them. This was happening where I used to live a few years ago.
Also if your cat is a rare colour/pattern they take them to sell for fur.
My cat Scratchy was stolen a few months ago but I know where she is. I can't go get her as she is bog standard black/white. I could only prove she's mine by DNA as I have her sister/son and nephew.
The woman who has her also has a lot of black/white cats.
As soon as Scratch gets out in the summer she will come home.
I am now thinking of building a cat run as I am scared to let them out.

D4wn

Mel,

When I was 23 my neighbour poisoned our cat with Jeyes Fluid. My kids saw him die. He ws only 5months old. He had fits and all sorts but by the time we got him to the vet it was too late. What right do these people think they have to take/harm our pets???

This is awful ! What on earth do these people get out of doing what they do?
My cats go off on little adventures & are such happy little cats. Our new kitten will soon be ready to venture out into the big wide world, it's worrying enough when they first go out thinking about if they are safe, if they'll remember the way home etc without having the added worry of if someone is trying to steal them.  :(
Glad the police were interested & concerned.

edit to add ; did you contact the paper Steve?

OMG Steve,

It's lucky you're suspicious....otherwise you may not have seen your cat again.

Cats being stolen was quite common not long ago, especially, as someone said, if they're 'different' looking (fur colour) then they're killed and sold for their fur.  It's disgusting.  I've not heard much about it lately, and naively thought it had stopped :(

So glad you got your cat back.

Take care, and stay suspicious!

Lisa
.

Hello,

Mel am sorry to hear about your cat being missing; I "lost" Oscar once he was missing for 25&1/2 hours after we had been burgled I fgure he got scared and ran :( that was the worse than the burgulary. I'm grateful  the neighbours around here look out for my two cats.

Steve; I'm sorry to say cats are stolen for "terrier training" be they Staffies etc for fighting, they start pups on cats...terrible but sadly true.

Karen    

I'm in such a quandary now after reading this post. I've got 2 pedigree cats of about 18 months that have always stayed in since we lost our cat to the lady in the house behind us (did get him back, now lives with partners mother). I had planned on breeding them but with nature stepping in resulting in the soon arrival of our first baby i had them spayed, the plan being i would gradually let them outside as we need to to convert the 'cat room' into a nursery. Both are unusual colours, the somali is blue and the maine-coone blue tabby, so now i'm terrified to let them out. I don't think the somali will leave the back garden, she likes her home comforts but Lunar the maine-coone is always looking to get out. Does anyone have any advice?

Erin

I was thinking all sorts of horrible things including the fur one but I didn't even begin to think about training dogs thats just horrible, it could possibly be fur as he's a pretty long haired grey cat.
We've had our cats disapear for days at a time as well and its horrible just not knowing where they are, we also had a stupid cat who would jump into peoples cars as soon as they opened them and regulary got phone calls from all over the place with people trying to explain how they had our cat.
We did contact the paper who again were very good and said they would do a write up on it, we live in Tenby West Wales just to let people be on their guard.

Thanks everyone
                        Steve

Erin, Hello I would let them out (my personal opinion) my two are 21 now and have gone out all their lives; they enjoy it so much I would hate to restrict them. Regardless of the "fear" that builds in your stomach when they aren't back when you think they should be :)

There are nasty people out there-you have to slowly let go of children-cats-dogs off lead and learn to let go and live with the fear. Hard to say harder to do, but overall I think my two are happier being allowed to be outside-although you will find they spend just as much time in the garden and in the house sunning themselves on windowsills.

Karen

I must admit i hate coming home to see Lunar sat in the window watching the rest of the world go by, Jasmine's usually to be find snuggled up on the bed. Its the first time we've ever kept cats in, i'm just so paranoid that the old lady behind us will steal them again. She feeds the whole estates cats, always has a tin of whiskas in her hands yet i don't think she even owns a cat! I've tried talking to her but she never answers her door to me, it used to be so frustrating to see colin our old cat sat in her garden yet refusing to come home for weeks on end. Whenever i went round to talk to her, there'd be no answer yet colin would appear over the back fence ten minutes later! It became a bit of a battle of wills until we caught colin and moved him to my boyfriends mothers, where he is very happy and adored. My next door neighbour has told me she spent ages in the summer watching lunar trying to catch bats through our bedroom window, so i'm sure she'd love to be out and about. I have gone so far as to collar them up with tags and bells, its just that final stage of actually opening the door for them that i'm struggling with. I think its bite the bullet time!

Why not spend the time in the garden yourself and leave the door open so they can pop out if they want to.
Then they will be "secure" because you are right by.

Karen