Cat Missing for 12 Years Reunites with Owner After Friend Recognizes Photo of the Pet on Facebook

Artie the 16-year-old cat is back with his doting owner after disappearing from his home in Wales in 2012

• Artie the cat missing from his home in Wales in 2012

• The feline reappeared in a garden near his old house in 2024, 12 years after he went missing

• A microchip and a Facebook post helped Artie reunite with his original owner

Facebook has helped a senior cat reconnect with the family who has been missing him for 12 years.

According to SWNS, Artie the cat, and indoor-outdoor pet, failed to return to his home in Connah's Quay, Wales, one night in 2012 and remained missing after that fateful evening.

The pet's family spent months looking for the feline after his disappearance, but after six months of rigorous searching, they found nothing and began to lose hope.

"After six months, I reached the point where I thought that either something had happened to him or someone else had taken him in," Theo-Will McKenna, one of the cat's owners, told SWNS.

It is not clear how Artie the cat spent the time between 2012 and 2024, but in May of this year, the feline turned up in a home garden close to his old residence in Connah's Quay.

Related: Emotional Support Dog Missing for 2 Years Reunited with Owner: ‘I Kind of Lost Hope After a While’

The garden owners brought Artie to a local vet to get scanned for a microchip. The vet found a microchip, which held outdated contact information for his owners and the information for his original home, North Clwyd Animal Rescue (NCAR).

"He showed up in their garden and just stayed there for four days. He didn't leave at all, just stayed there," McKenna said about Artie's reappearance. "They scooped him up and took him to the vet, who scanned his microchip. The chip was still registered to my mum at our old Blaken address, but NCAR always stayed on the microchip as a secondary contact."

Once NCAR received a call about Artie, they picked up the pet from the vet and posted photos of the feline on Facebook, hoping to find the cat's owner.

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A friend of McKenna's saw the post and recognized Artie as their buddy's long-lost pet. The friend sent the information on to McKenna.

"It took me a second to recognize him because he looked so bedraggled and skinny," the pet parent explained when he saw Artie again. "It didn't feel real. I thought there was no way it could be him."

"It had been 12 years – he went missing when I was 17. I thought no cat could survive 12 years on the street," McKenna added.

According to McKenna, NCAR was "absolutely brilliant" during Artie's rescue and helped the cat clean up before returning home.

Related: Man Rescues 1-Lb. Kitten from Busy New York Street After She Is Tossed Out of a Car Window

"They did some medical work on him – removed some teeth, treated his hyperthyroidism, and took out some precancerous lumps in his ears," McKenna told SWNS.

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Artie is now back living with McKenna and his owner's new feline. The felines cohabitate peacefully, and Artie seems grateful to be back in a loving home.

"He's purring up a storm every time I go near him," McKenna said.

The cat lover added that he's determined to keep Artie, now 16, as long as he can, including covering the expensive ongoing medical care the cat now requires.

McKenna started a fundraiser to help cover some of the expenses and was moved to receive enough money to cover months of Artie's medical bills.

The owner said the funds will allow Artie to spend his twilight years "somewhere that he's loved – which will be here."

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