Missing Pontefract cat is found 30 miles from home

A cat who went missing from his home in Pontefract six weeks ago has been found almost 30 miles from home.
Diggle, pictured, went missing six weeks ago and has been found more than 30 miles from his Pontefract home.Diggle, pictured, went missing six weeks ago and has been found more than 30 miles from his Pontefract home.
Diggle, pictured, went missing six weeks ago and has been found more than 30 miles from his Pontefract home.

Diggle, a two-year-old black and white cat, went missing from the Parkins’ home in Pontefract on Saturday, October 6, and had not been seen since.

So the family were shocked to receive a call to tell them that their cat had been found in Sheffield, more than 30 miles away.

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“We always let him out, he’s an outdoor cat,” said Rachael Parkin. “My husband let him out about 2am and then I went to church on the Sunday. I’d called him and he’d not come in, and when I got back he was still not here.”

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The Parkins waited, but when Diggle, who is named after John Diggle from the DC Comics Arrowverse franchise, had still not returned after several days they began to fear the worst.

They contacted their vet and microchip company to register him as missing, and Rachael shared photos of him on a missing pets Facebook page.

She said: “It was a nightmare. He’s one of our family, he’s such a great cat. We’d gone out walking around the streets, and we kept hoping, but after six weeks you never know what’s happened.

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“I got to the point where I thought he’d found some nice family, and he didn’t want to leave them.”

Rachael had all-but given up hope when she noticed a missed call in her phone yesterday evening.

She had taken her daughters to the Pontefract lights switch on and did not hear her phone ring.

"I checked my phone and I had got these missed calls from a Sheffield number," she said. "I phoned them back and it was a vet on the end of the phone.

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"She said this lovely lady in Sheffield found your cat and has been looking after him for the last four days."

It had been more than six weeks since Diggle had first gone missing. He had been found in Sheffield, close to Hillsborough, where a vet had scanned his microchip to access the Parkins' contact details.

Though he has lost some weight, Diggle is otherwise healthy, and will receive a full health check from the vet before Rachael picks him up on Thursday.

She said: "Who knows where he’s been, or what he’s seen, or what he’s done.

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"We don’t know how he’s got there, maybe he jumped into somebody’s van and they didn’t notice.

"We keep on joking he must have had a metro pass and hopped on a train.

"There are so many people missing pets and doing everything possible and I just wanted to put it out there that there is still hope."