A woman has become Britain’s first full-time lost CAT hunter — reuniting hundreds of missing moggies with their owners.
Kind-hearted Louise Davies, 57, spends eight hours a day chasing down and caring for felines who have strayed from home.
The kitty lover uses a Halo microchip scanner and has access to a confidential vets and charity database which has names and addresses of pet owners.
Louise travels the country using her scanner which detects microchips of missing cats – then contacts the owner to tell them she’s found their pet.
She is also the administrator of around 50 lost and found cat groups on Facebook all around the country, including Gloucestershire, Plymouth, Kent and Bristol.
Lousie has reunited hundreds of cats over the past 18 months – sometimes when the moggies have been missing for months.
She has reunited hundreds of cats with their owners, including a staggering 15 in the last two weeks.
The scheme was launched a year and a half ago after Louise’s own beloved Bengal two-year-old cat, Daisy went missing in September 2015.
But Louise is adamant she doesn’t have a monetary incentive and has donated the modest £80 reward money handed over by relieved owners since she started charity.
Louise, of Cheltenham, Glos., said: “I don’t like to show off but it’s in the hundreds – I difficult to keep track. I have had fiften homed in the last two weeks.
“Anyone could buy a scanner, they are on Amazon, but they wouldn’t get access to the confidential details on the database I get access to.
“I had one come home over the weekend which had been missing for 18 months. The owner had moved house in the meantime but had kept her chip details up to date.”
Louise claims she has seen a spike in the number of cats found miles away from home – sometimes finding their way into food deliveries and removal vans.
Her own two-year-old cat, Daisy jumped into a delivery van and ended up six miles away at a depot centre, it’s believed.
“We are not 100% sure but a delivery van was seen on my drive. I think she jumped in while the guy was dropping off some parcels,” added Louise.
“There is a depot centre six miles away and we think she made her own way back from there.
“She was found in flower bed exhausted about one mile away from our home and taken in by staff from the Sue Ryder Hospice in Cheltenham.
“Staff knew she was a bit lost and went online and saw the advert I had posted. She was missing for eight days.
“I didn’t realise just how awful you feel when your cat goes missing.
“I have had cats all my life and never had that experience, it was an awful feeling not knowing if it’s injured – it was a living hell.
“Cats are like family and you pick up the sense of desperation from owners.
“But there was nobody around to help me so I stumbled my way through it.
“It was a happy ever after in the end as I got her back, but afterwards I decided I wanted to help others.
“I don’t get a single penny. People have been grateful and given money but I got a charity I support.”
She admits reuniting them with their owners can take months and sometimes doesn’t happen at all, and highlighted the importance of getting a cat chipped.
She spends time with the cats, sometimes weeks, returning to feed them every day until they grow to trust her.
“Often, when cats go missing, they go into survival mode, which means that even if they’re the most friendly cat ever, they won’t seem it,” added Louise.
She added: “It is extremely important to not only get them chipped, but to get the males snipped too.
“A lot of the males follow the female cats for miles and then get themselves lost.
“But it’s so important to get them micro chipped because it’s proof of ownership and makes it so much easier to reunite them with their families.”
