Kiltarlity family's delight after beloved cat is found – in Achiltibuie!
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A rescue cat has been reunited with his loving family after a mystery journey of almost 80 miles to the north-west coast.
One-year-old Patch was at the centre of family life after being adopted by Alena Ross McDiarmid, her husband and two boys in Kiltarlity.
However, he went missing on Boxing Day morning leaving the family to believe the very worst had happened.
While he was born feral on a farm on Orkney and would habitually hiss and spit at any human who came too near, with lots of patience from the family he had become “the friendliest cat ever” and his loss was devastating.
Alena said: “We saw Patch as normal on Boxing Day morning, then didn’t see him again.
“For the first couple of days we thought maybe he had wandered a bit far hunting and would return, however he did not return.
“The weather had been pretty awful on Boxing Day so we wondered if he had become trapped somewhere, or was killed on the road and no one had found him.
“He is chipped so we figured that if anyone found him at the road side we should have heard about it.
“It ended up a bit of a mystery.
“The children and I were pretty gutted about this, having got so used to having such a friendly fella around – he had even become friends with our excitable collie dog Molly.”
By the beginning of this month the family had essentially given up on any idea of seeing Patch again before, on February 10, Alena received a call from a number she did not recognise.
It was from Conan Vets in Ullapool, where Patch was now resident having been handed in by David Barker from Achiltibuie, who had been looking after him for a fortnight after he was found roaming in the area, nearly 80 miles from home.
Exactly how Patch made the 75-mile coast to coast journey seemingly unscathed remains a mystery, though Alena does have a theory.
“My auntie visited us in Beauly on Boxing Day, went home to Inverness for the night, and then at around lunchtime on the 27th headed off to Achiltibuie in terrible weather for a ceilidh,” she said.
“I don’t believe he was in her car or the boot, as he would have definitely let himself be known – he’s very noisy in the car.
“If he was underneath her car or in the workings of it, I can’t imagine why he didn’t come out the night of Boxing Day once she’d parked in Inverness, and how he didn’t come to any harm.
“It seems like too much of a coincidence that we last saw him on Boxing Day and that my auntie had been here and then had been going to Achiltibuie, but so many mysteries remain.”
Mr Barker said: “The cat was in Achiltibuie for a month before he was spotted, and must have been starving because he eventually started going to people’s doorways for food.
“He was chased from my friend’s house by a Jack Russell, and I said if it came back I would take it.
“The cat lived with me for two weeks, until I was off work and able to take him to the vets in Ullapool to look for a chip.”
Whatever the exact circumstances of his disappearance it all ended well with Patch now safely home and back to his usual activities of hunting in fields and lying in his favourite spot in front of the fire.
