A young tabby and white cat who mysteriously appeared in a Lymm garden has been reunited with his owners – after a remarkable journey of 80 miles.
It sounds like something straight out of Disney’s famous The Incredible Journey – only this time the adventure has brought one very determined cat from York to a quiet veg patch in Lymm.
Dill, a young tabby and white cat, simply appeared in the side garden of Grammar School Road, where Sarah Andrew first spotted him.
Healthy, friendly and without a collar, Sarah initially assumed he belonged to somebody nearby.
But as the days passed, it became increasingly clear that Dill wasn’t in any hurry to leave.
Sarah posted online asking if anyone recognised him.
“This young cat has been hanging around our side garden all day. It’s still here and although it’s healthy it is young and has no collar so just wanted to make sure it’s not missing,” she wrote.
The following morning, Dill was still there.
“I’m sure he must belong to someone nearby. I’d feel better if others recognised him.”
By day three, there was little doubt that Dill had decided the veg patch was home.
He spent his days wandering around the garden and sleeping on top of things – while apparently enjoying the plentiful supply of mice.
Sarah even provided him with a box, but Dill showed no signs of moving on.
He had now spent three days and three nights in the garden.
“I’ve this funny feeling he is enjoying finding mice in the veg patch,” Sarah said.
But there was one nagging thought. What if this friendly little visitor actually belonged to someone who was desperately looking for him?
Sarah said she would get him checked for a microchip, adding that she would be “really upset if he has an owner waiting for him”.
That was when volunteer Al Priest from Lymm Found Pet Scanners stepped in.
Having seen Sarah’s posts, Al offered to come to the garden and scan Dill there, meaning the cat didn’t have to be caught and transported anywhere.
“I saw Sarah’s post – three days and three nights in the same garden is a long time for a cat not to go home,” said Al.
“I offered to pop round and scan him there and then.”
It took just one quick scan to turn a quiet Lymm garden into the scene of an extraordinary reunion story. The scanner revealed a microchip. Then came the phone call.
And suddenly the mystery of Dill’s disappearance was solved.
He wasn’t a local stray. He wasn’t a neighbour’s cat. Dill had been missing for two years. And his registered home was in York.
That meant this little cat had somehow ended up almost 96 miles away by road – around 80 miles as the crow flies – from where his owners thought he was.
“You scan hoping for a local chip, you don’t expect to see York come up after two years,” said Al.
“To have travelled that far and be completely fine – it was a brilliant result.”
For Dill’s owners, the news was almost impossible to believe.
After two years of wondering what had happened to their much-loved cat, they suddenly discovered that he was alive, well and enjoying life in somebody else’s veg patch nearly 100 miles away.
And Dill’s incredible adventure is about to have another happy ending. His owners are travelling to Lymm on Monday to collect him. Even better, he will be reunited with his sister.
The remarkable discovery is also a reminder of the importance of microchipping cats – and of the difference one observant member of the community can make.
Sarah could easily have assumed Dill was simply a local cat enjoying an afternoon in her garden. Instead, she asked questions. She posted photographs. She kept an eye on him.
And when he refused to leave, she made sure someone checked whether he was chipped.
That one decision solved a two-year mystery.
Somewhere along the way, Dill had embarked on his own incredible journey from York to Lymm. Nobody knows exactly how he got there.
But thanks to Sarah, Al and a tiny microchip, the final chapter of Dill’s extraordinary adventure is now being written – and this time, it’s taking him home.
* For those of you not old enough to remember – The Incredible Journey is a 1963 adventure film directed by Fletcher Markle and produced by Walt Disney Productions. Based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Scottish writer Sheila Burnford,[2] the film follows the adventure of Luath the Labrador Retriever, Bodger the Bull Terrier, and Tao the Siamese cat as they journey 300 miles (480 km) through the Canadian wilderness to return to their home.
