This is the happy ending story of Roxy, a 7-year-old cat from the Kingswood, South Gloucestershire area who escaped during a 2013 visit to the vet. Thanks to a microchip, Roxy has been reunited with her family.
Owner Vicky Stokes put up posters back in 2013 but Roxy was never found. It was recently when Roxy started showing up in the garden belonging to Amy Ward who took the cat in.
In an interview with BBC Amy described the ordeal of getting Roxy inside.
“She looked really thin and obviously had fleas so we started feeding her and even called out the RSPCA to try and catch her but she freaked out. I even tried to put her in a box but she nearly tore me to pieces so we just started feeding her closer and closer to the house.”
The amazing part of this story is Amy eventually took Roxy back to the same vet where she had disappeared from in 2013. The microchip traced her back to Vicky, who along with her two daughters were contacted by phone on December 29.
Vicky calls Roxy her little Christmas miracle and the family is so thankful for finally being reunited. She told BBC
“Things have changed a bit since she was last here so we now have three cats in total and two kids and we live in a different house but hopefully she will settle in in no time.”
The other two cats in the home aren’t exactly thrilled.
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What a total, humiliating waste of time and effort posting that comment, telling the story of my darling Emmy was.
If my contributions aren’t wanted, someone should just say it straight.
The power of the microchip!
I know accidents do happen, but it always strikes me as really slack when a cat escapes from a vet surgery.
I had a semi feral (6 mths at home, nursing/taming) escape from a vet whilst being prepped for spay. I had found her at six months old running, panicked in traffic, in snow in a town in the Cotswolds, she was peppered with shot from an air gun and had the worst URI I had ever seen.
after her escape, Emmy lived on the river grounds behind the surgery, for five months, where I went everyday trying to find her. Then after about 2 weeks, a very kind cat loving lady, appeared. i had spoken to every household nearby, but this lady moved in after I had done that. She told me that Emmy had been very cautiously coming to eat scraps from the bird table.
So over a period of 4.5 months, Ivy started introducing cat food, gradually moving the food into her garden shed. Emmy had reverted to true feral and would only tolerate the presence of Ivy’s very gentle poodle, Mops, in the garden with her, and then only in the small hours of night.
It took so long, but eventually Emmy took up nightly shelter in the shed, with food, water and a cosy bed. Emmy was also 100% trap shy.
One evening, I got a call from Ivy, she had just spent 4 hours, sitting on the floor, with Mops, enticing Emmy with food, and Emmy had just walked into a carrier, groomed herself and fallen asleep.
I went and fetched Emmy, who on being back at home, promptly jumped on the human bed, lying there like she had never left. I was so grateful to the kindness and tenacity of Ivy who never gave up on Emmy. We became friends.
Alas, Emmy returned pregnant and with an FeLV infection. She gave birth to one kitten on my pillow, next to my face, at 3am. The kitten (little Boots) did not thrive, Emmy didn’t have any interest. Despite careful bottle feeding, the little black and white kitten died 4 days later.
Emmy lived on for 5 years. Eventually, a spiteful form of lymphosarcoman the thymus gland got her, it was a horrible end, a tumour devoured her lung space, she died within 10 minutes of getting to the vets. I knew she wouldn’t make it, she had rallied many times and the vets had done all they could for her since diagnosis. She had been comfortable until the last day.
I still miss Emmy. We exchange Christmas cards with Ivy’s daughter to this day. Ivy was getting on in years when she so skillfully managed to win Emmy’s confidence and get her back.
By way of apology, the vet practice treated Emmy for free for the rest of her short life. They were genuinely sorry that their mistake resulted in such a dreadful outcome.
Microchips hadn’t been invented back then, not that they would have helped in that situation. It was the wisdom, kindness and patience of Ivy & Mops that got her home.